Abominations

by Unknown Author

A radio on Bruce’s collar crackled and spoke. “ Banner? Banner, you there?”

  “I’m here, Morgan, but we’re in a jam. Listen, there’s a bomb here.’ ’

  “We’re stuck in a holding pattern'” Morgan said, “Everybody’s out and we’re stuck.”

  “I know, I saw. The bomb is here, it’s not up with you, it’s here. I’m gonna try to defuse it.”

  There was a pause. “I can get you a team. There’s gotta be—'

  “No time,” Bruce interrupted. “" gotta go. I’ll be in touch/’

  Greg was rummaging through the security desk. “I have a pair of scissors and a dime.”

  “Screws are too small for the dime, but I’ll take the scissors,” Bruce said, holding up his giant hand. The scissors landed softly in his palm and he sat them down before him.

  :: “Wait!” Nadia said, opening her handbag. “Here.” She drew out a white fold-over plastic pouch. “This is for my reading glasses.” Bruce took it and smiled. It held a tiny pair of tweezers and a minuscule screwdriver, both for handling the screws on a pair of frames. “Perfect.” Bruce breathed once, deeply, then took the screwdriver between his thumb and forefinger. He bent down, looking for the screws that held the globe panel in place. His hand shook. “Hell!”

  “What?” Betty yelped.

  “It’s just—it’s just that my fingers are so huge that it’s hard to work with normal equipment. Okay. Okay.” He bit his lip and controlled the movement of his hand, trying hard to feel the tiny piece of metal that barely registered in the nerve sensors of his skin. He got the first screw, then moved to the second, on the other side of the green globe, moving around, alternating, as he would with a tire.

  The truth was, Bruce always hated tools, even though he was very good with them. Perhaps there was something in that. He mastered tools because tie needed to use what was knocking around in his brain, but even when he had finer hands, they could never express but bluntly the visions his mind held. Tools were clumsy and unyielding, like his limbs. There was a time when he nearly punctured an artery trying to change a tire in the rain. Tools would never reflect the mind of Bruce Banner, and neither would his clumsy, massive body now, except through a glass, green and darkly.

  The clock gave him two minutes when Bruce gingerly lifted the green dome off the top of the device, and he beheld exactly what he expected. Wires.

  “Is this one of those which-one-do-you-cut things?” Betty asked.

  Bruce sighed. “Sort of.” He looked at Betty. “Fact is, though, it’s never as simple as it looks in the movies, except the part about cutting the wrong one can make you dead.” He surveyed the wires. There were three critical wires running to the detonator, all of them green. Light, medium, and dark. Very funny.

  ; “One and a half minutes.” Bruce looked at his wife. “Betty. I can’t do this. Get out of the way, I’m going to take it as far away as I can, maybe the ocean.1’

  ~3jYou can’t.”

  He shook his head. ‘I have to. I’ll try not to be there when it—”

  “You can’t move it,” Nadia said, standing at the security desk. She was running through Sarah Josef’s droning message, now playing a part of it:

  “The device is not to be moved. If the device is moved more than six feet once it has been activated, it will explode.”

  The Hulk was already beginning to stand, his hands around the bomb, and he froze. He couldn’t have moved it more than three feet. “Okay.” He set it back down “Okay, then now we have a minute-fifteen, and I have to think.” He scratched his chin, then pushed the sweat away from his brow. “Look at that circuitry. Ten years ago I couldn’t have done this. It’s possible that even if I cut the right wire it won’t matter ” He was muttering to himself, very fast, not asking for comment and receiving none. The other three simply stood and watched as the behemoth talked to a bomb. “One thing I know is that this is cleariy fashioned after my own design. So it should be pretty much the same, just a lot smaller and cooler. Now, my bomb had a trick to it that I put in sort of as a failsafe. The motherboard. Of course! Screw the wires, it was the seventh circuit!”

  “What will that do, cutting that circuit?”

  “Well, in this case I’ll just pull a chip out, but it should just die. It’s a bottleneck I put in my design. A place where all the signals travel through, and if I kill that, no more signal.’

  “Do it/’ Betty shouted.

  “Except I don’t have any real reason to assume these guys followed my design that dosely.”

  “Bruce .. i”

  “Right. Okay.” Bruce bent forward, picked up the scissors, then lay- them down and picked up the screwdriver again. He leaned in and carefully wedged the flat of the screwdriver against the underside of the chip on the motherboard. “Okay. Here goes.”

  “Stop,” came a voice, slithering and wet. Bruce froze. Nadia screamed. “Oh my God! That’s him, that’s that, creature that...”

  Bruce looked at Nadia and at Emil. “We’re a little pressed for time here,” he said, resisting the urge to call Emil by name.

  “And you’ll have etemily to regret it if you do whatever it is you’re about to do. ’

  “What?” Thirty seconds.

  “Bruce, URSA had a feeling you might try this. I warned them about that, so they reversed your failsafe. ’ “Reversed?”

  “Reversed.”

  “We’re about to blow up here.’’

  The gamma demon crouched down, drawing in close, whispering. “Listen to me. For Nadia. The truth. Reverse your action.”

  “What the hell is the reverse of seven?” Bruce shouted. Twenty seconds.

  Betty shook her hands. “Thirteen?”

  Greg raised an eyebrow. “Three-point-five?”

  Emil sat back, casting a look of disappointment on Betty. “Religious studies instructor indeed. ’ He looked at Bruce. “Seven is the number of God.”

  “fine of them,,”' Betty said.

  “The number of the devil is ...”-“Six-six-six?”

  Emil nodded, tilting his head. “That or four.” “Four?” Bruce said. “I never heard that.”

  “I have,’’ Betty said.

  “Really. I promise,” he rasped. “But six is bad, too.” Ten seconds. Bruce looked at the motherboard. Six or four. Six or four. “When you set this whole thing up, you got URSA to help with your agenda?” Why are you here? “Yes.”

  “Sc, ’ he was whispering between his own words, “they saw the verse, the proverb.”

  “Yes.'”' ■

  There are six things which are an Abomination unto the Lord. The six-or-seven confusion.

  Bruce bent down again with the screwdriver and closed his eyes as he stuck the head underneath the sixth chip and pried it loose.

  The timer chirped once. And died, the red light disappearing. No dramatic last readout, it did not read oh-oh-seven, or anything.

  Bruce stared for a long moment. Nothing, and nothing happened.

  Betty pounced, like a cat, like chain Lightning, landing on his chest and putting her arms around him. Bruce was just beginning to breathe.

  “I don’t believe it,” Bruce said. “I don’t believe fie—”

  Bruce looked back, past his wife, who clung to him like a vine as he stood. He looked past the embracing Greg Vranjesevic and Nadia Domova, scanning the room.

  Emil was gone.

  II I' I ■ miiiiiiiiii i i i, mu 11 i mi

  should be. There were work crews everywhere, fixing a million broken items from all the pitching and turning of the Helicarrier’s adventure with autopiloting. Add to that the gaping hole in the gymnasium floor, and there were a lot of work orders being approved.

  Morgan was on the telephone, speaking into a headset, and the sandy-haired man looked up and gestured for Bruce to come inside. The director kept talking, the bandage on his face moving with his cheek, so that it seemed to Bruce that it had to hurt for him to speak. One of his hands was bandaged as well, and there was a telltale rise under
the SAFE head’s starched shirt, the bandages underneath running across his chest, where he had been sliced by the late head of Gamma Team. All in all, though, he was not as much a mess as he might have been.

  he incredible Hulk stood just outside Sean Morgan’s

  office. The Helicarrier was alive with activity, as it

  “Nick—no, Nick. Listen, I have no clue why the ambassador requested the Russians send the tape of the crisis to me first. What difference does it make, I sent it right to you anyway? That’s appropriate after all, you’re the international types. Uh huh ...”

  Bruce did not like being here while all of the agents were awake, but Morgan had asked to see him, politely no less.

  “Altered?” Morgan continued, looking at Bruce for a moment. “Nick, the very idea is not just insulting, it’s positively horrifying. SAFE wouldn’t alter a tape of international consequence. My God, that’s the kind of spooky thing I’d expect from S.H.I.E.L.D., but we’re just a bunch of locals with a Heiicarrier, here, Nick. I don’t even think we have a video editor.”

  Bruce covered his mouth, smiling. Morgan was having an unmitigated and decidedly uncharacteristic ball. ‘Uh huh,” Morgan continued. “Woman? Yes, yes, Nadia Dor-nova was there.” There was a long silence. “You know,

  the Broadway woman. Antigone___What other? Uh huh

  ... Look, Nick, reports or not, I’ve seen every inch of tape from that day and there was no other woman besides Domova, which is not a real shock, because she’s Greg Vranjesevic’s girlfriend .. No No one else ..1 No, I have no idea.’ Morgan coughed. "‘Yeah, well, I get a lot of that. Yours too. Why, Nick, I have absolutely nothing up my ... Nick?”

  Morgan set down the headset. He composed himself and after a moment took on a grave face, very grave, mock-undertaker grave, even, Bruce thought. “This job,” he said, “has few joys.”

  “He’s upset?”

  “He’s always upset,” Morgan said. Now his face took on a calmer tone, began to lose some of its joviality.

  'Thanks for coming.”

  “You’ve had quite a shakeup around here,” Bruce said.

  “Yes.” Morgan nodded, leaning back. “Coffee?” “Nah,” Bruce said. “Betty wants me to cut back.” “Interesting.”

  “Um...” Bruce looked at the headset on Morgan’s desk. “If I understood that conversation correctly ... thank you. I mean that. We failed in everything we wanted to do.”

  “Hm. How so?”

  “KGB didn’t get Emil, of course. So you guys didn’t get yours back in exchange.’..’

  “Well, I’m sorry that the full deal didn’t go through. But if you’re talking about our little favor to Betty....” “Yes.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. She captured this man Timm, a double for URSA, who was in the employ of SAFE. That alone is enough to earn our favor. I like to take care of my people, Dr. Banner.”

  “I’m, ah, I’m sorry about Jo.” Bruce had gotten the whole briefing in short form already , but they hadn’t really talked about it.

  ‘1 haven’t been paying enough attention,” Morgan said. “Too much—I don t know. Grief.”

  “Yes,” Bruce said. “But it’s useful, I think.'

  “She could have been me, actually,” Morgan said, musing. “She had everv right to her revenge, when you think about it.”

  “You know what?” Bruce leaned forward. “Try not to. All right? Because you’ll never make sense out of it.” “Well.” Morgan looked out the window. “Well. There’s plenty of time for that, I guess.”

  “Maybe you should take some time off.”

  “Hm? No,” Morgan said. “This is my element. It’ll be everything I can do to make sure SAFE doesn’t lose ts funding after we were so heavily infiltrated. Years of work will have to be redone. So that’s what I’ll do.” Bruce watched the man, a profile in silhouette against the gray sky outside. “Whatever you say. ’

  “We didn’t completely fail, anyway.’ Morgan looked at Bruce. ‘ ‘We stopped him, didn’t we? That bomb could have gone off, tom away half the city. Insane.”

  “That’s something, i guess.”

  Morgan spun around and leaned forward on his desk. ■‘No,” he said. “That’s everything.’’

  The Hulk smiled, rising. “Thank you. I guess I’ll be leaving you to your work, then.” He started to turn and walk.

  “Dr. Banner—”

  Bruce turned around “Hm?”

  “Thank you for trying to save my son,” Morgan said softly.

  The Hulk nodded, slowly, clutching the door handle.

  “I have nothing to say, Morgan,” he managed, ‘‘except thank you.”

  ''Thank you for deciding to walk with me,” Betty said. She snuggled against Bruce as she walked through the T rilla2e, listening to the blues clubs through the doorways as they passed.

  Bruce grinned a bit. “Well, even this getup won’t keep me from being recognized if someone were fooking for the-Hulk in particular.” He wore a wide, dark hat and a coat that could house a regiment.

  “I know,” she said. They came to a stop at Washington Square, and Betty stepped up on a stone embankment, high enough that she could see eye-to-eye with her husband. “1 know, we could be recognized. Our cover could be blown. But every now and then, isn’t it nice to walk in the city and just say, to hell with it?”

  “Yeah, well, except I feel so... old.” Bruce looked across Washington Square Park. There were students hanging out, crunchy granola types mixing the past and the future.

  “But not like an outsider,” Betty said.

  “No,” he answered. “Not in the way you mean.” She turned around and leaned back against the massive giant in the dark coat, looking at the cold streets, and they both breathed deeply.

  “You should know that Morgan protected your secret,” Bruce said. “I didn’t even have to press him on it”

  “You mean I can stay?” She sounded on the verge of crying. “The Faculty Senate isn’t going to suddenly le-am I’m a fugitive from justice and throw me out?”-Well, God knows Morgan might ask you for a favor iter on. You might wish you hadn’t taken his help.”

  1 So, um,” she said, looking down. She ran her fingers through a strand of hair that fell from her wool hat. “I can’t believe I’m actually sayingv'3um.’ I’m always getting on my students about that. ’’ Betty cleared her throat. “So you’re gonna stay, too?”

  “The only danger is to you, ' he said, slowly.

  “You don’t have to ask me how I feel about that.”

  After a wh;,e he tapped her arm and gestured over his own shoulder. ‘Let’s get some hot chocolate.” She hopped off the cement block, once again three-quarters of his height. ‘ And of course, I’ll stay. I like it,” he said. “Hike L”

  They stopped a block down at a vendor’s cart. Bruce hung back about twelve feet, in the shadows, dark entrance of an alleyway between two buildings, while Betty bought the chocolate. Bruce was looking down the alley when Betty whistled, holding one of the chocolates out. He took his and sipped it, letting the hot liquid run over his tongue.

  Down the alley, Bruce saw something move. He turned his gaze in that direction in time to see a sewer cover swaying a bit, suspended by a shadowy shape underneath, the metal disk raised up nearly half a foot. Bruce stared at the shadow and looked back at Betty. It wasn’t the sewer cover that caught his eye, made him hand Betty his chocolate and apologize profusely, made him begin to move down the alley after telling her to meet him back home.

  It was the pair of glowing, blinking red eyes underneath. The cover shut before Bruce even got near, but Bruce wasted no time bending down and wedging his pinky into the keyhole, lifting it. Vaguely, he heard Betty shout something about being careful. He would. He always would.

  Bruce landed in the sewer tunnel, his feet hitting the floor of the tunnel with a splat “Come on, Emil,” he said, as he stood there, the surrounding few feet lit up by the light from the alley above. “I’m tired of this. ’


  There was movement to his left, about ten feet down. Something stuck ts head around the comer, and Brace

  became aware of a torch burning. Then he saw tne torch and the arm that bore it wave, gesturing with the torch. Bruce movec n that direction, hand running along the wet brick, listening. He could hear something, breathing, and, as he reached the comer, he heard—Kennedy?

  ,.. shall pay any price, bear any burden.. ..

  Bruce turned the comer and saw flickering light, then realized it was still another turn away. He padded down the tunnel, listening to Kennedy and the dripping of the liquid in the pipes and the odd, rasping breath of the Abomination.

  One more corner and the tunnel opened up into a wide section the size of Bruce’s living room. On the far end, the torch had been put into a crevice in the brick and hung there, lighting up the two long walls. Bruce barely had time to register that the walls were covered in glass screens when the living room under the city exploded in video.

  Each wall lit up with pixellated images from damp ground to cobwebby ceiling. In all, there had to be twenty screens on each side, and Bruce stood between them, watching both walls, staring ahead. Across the room the tunnel shrank down and continued, and Brace saw a dark figure crouched there, back in the shadows, rasping, red eyes glowing, the slithery voice speaking. “Stop. Look, Bruce. Look. Look what I have to show you.”

  Bruce watched the screens, all of them, the images blinking out into static and coming back, one after the other. Time bent forward and back, swooping close, to the present and zooming back, Kennedy and the blank check, Khrushchev and his shoe, Ike and the people who liked him.

  “What is character9” the fiery eyes in the dark said. “What is an individual? Once I thought a man is defined by what he believes in. But that is not it. That is another way of saying a man is what he serves. And somehow that is not right. ”

  There were too many images for Bruce to follow, but he couldn't help his eyes tracking as many as he could, his brain labelling each of them. Andropov, Right 007 a fireball in the sky, Sputnik.

  “We are what we are. That’s simplistic, isn’t it?3 Emil said, and on Bruce’s right he caught a picture of Emil Blonsky, so large he filled all the screens on that side, young, with dark hair and a royal hawklike nose. And on the left, a young Bruce, a scrawny kid in a lab coat, hair greasy and unkempt, ugly purple cords. He was folding his arms, not looking at the camera, staring instead at a blackboard with a blurred diagram, just another pro iect, maybe. Maybe the gamma bomb. “Here we are Trapped in time, Bruce. This is us before the gamma wave. This is us before our cells were turned inside out and we were made new beings. We are what we are, so are we still the same?’-’.