Search and Rescue

by Unknown Author

  Looks like I’m going to find out the hard way where all my apparatus and notes have disappeared to, she thought.

  Before the Harpy-Sentinel could finish affixing the tag to Moira’s person, however, a deafening crack of thunder sounded right outside the sundered metal shudders. Moira’s heart leaped hopefully, especially since the daily weather report had said nothing about any nocturnal storms. Could it be... ?

  Yes!

  Carried by a powerful blast of wind, Storm flew into the laboratory through the shattered window. The wings of her black uniform swelled beneath her arms and her riveting blue eyes searched the icebound chamber, widening in recognition as she spotted Moira and Bobby, bound and helpless upon the floor. “Thank heavens!” Moira gasped in relief. The X-Men were here—and Iron Man?

  So it seemed. The Golden Avenger followed Storm through the punctured metal screens. Rockets in his iron boots carried him above the floor as readily as Storm’s obedient winds. Moira had no idea why the armored hero had arrived with Ororo, but she didn’t much care. Under the circumstances, she thought, I’m not about to look a gift Avenger in the mouth. . . .

  Three stories below, on the ground floor of the science building, Bruce Banner and Wolverine found definite signs of forced entry; namely, a steel-framed glass door that had been ripped from its hinges. It looked, Banner thought, like the kind of excessive property damage the Hulk usually left behind, except that heavy tracks in the nearby lawn bore the unmistakable impression of something with only two toes on each foot. Banner knew of only one creature, as strong and savage as the Hulk, who left tracks like that.

  “The Abomination,” he said tersely.

  It seemed that the Avenger’s classified information was correct; the mechanized monsters allegedly attacking this isolated scientific outpost were indeed the so-called Gamma Sentinels. Banner shook his weary head in disgust. Bad enough there was already one Abomination loose in the world; why in the world would anyone want to build another one?

  Not that I’m one to talk, he admitted privately. If not for his own attempts to harness gamma radiation, there would be no Hulk nor Abomination. Nor any Leader, for that matter. He could hardly sit in judgment over other scientists, not after all the heartache and havoc his own discoveries had inflicted on the world. The best I can do now is try to clean up the mess I helped to create.

  “Not wantin’ to tell you your business, bub,” Wolverine said gruffly, “but maybe you ought to be changin’ into your tougher half?’ ’ These were the first words the laconic X-Man had said to him since they left the quinjet down by the docks. Wolverine placed his own boot beside one of the Abomination’s footprints; the disparity in size was impressive. “Don’t take it personal, but I’d rather have the

  Hulk backin’ me up when the fur starts flyin’.”

  Banner looked down at the scruffy, stocky mutant, which was something of an unusual perspective. Wolverine was the only superhero he had ever met, this side of Ant-Man and the Wasp, who was shorter than the scientist in his ‘ ‘puny’ ’ human form. He shared enough memories with the Hulk, though, to know that Wolverine’s lack of height was no reflection on his fighting abilities. Wolverine was one of the most formidable adversaries the Hulk had ever faced.

  As much as Banner hated to admit it, the X-Man had a point. If there was a robotic replica of the Abomination prowling about, there wasn’t much ordinary Bruce Banner could do to stop him. He would have to let his monstrous counterpart out of the box once more. “All right,” he told Wolverine. “Give me a minute,”

  The late night air was chilly enough that he was grateful for the borrowed sweater and jacket Jarvis had provided him. Nonetheless, he stripped down to his jeans in a brisk and efficient manner, removing his shoes, socks, shirt, sweater, and polyester jacket, then placing them neatly in a pile on the off chance that the Hulk would think to retrieve them later. Goosebumps broke out all over his exposed arms and chest, but that was nothing compared to bodily changes in store.

  Very well, you damn green albatross, he thought. Come on out and play.

  Once he’d had little or no control over his transformations, but he’d learned enough biofeedback techniques over the last few years to be able to trigger the metamorphosis at will. He pictured the Hulk in his mind, remembered how the brutish creature had made a travesty of his life, destroying his career and turning him repeatedly into a hunted fugitive, and, sure enough, he soon felt his blood pressure rising, his pent-up anger and resentment initiating a metabolic chain reaction that buried the skinny scientist’s scholarly physique beneath a couple tons of augmented bone and muscle, and that sank his mind and personality into the seething substrata of a more volatile and elemental identity. A narrow leather belt snapped like a rubber band as his torso expanded to fill the waistband of the oversized jeans. Goosebumps gave way to rippling layers of muscle and sinews. Massive knees tore through tough denim.

  “I’m back!” the incredible Hulk bellowed triumphantly, shaking anvil-sized fists at the starry sky above.

  “So much for the element of surprise,” Wolverine said, scowling, irritation in his raspy voice. Shining silver claws sprang from the back of his clenched fists.

  The Hulk was not at all intimidated by Wolverine’s gleaming claws. “Bah!” the jade giant said. “The Hulk doesn’t skulk through shadows like a sneak thief. I go where I like, and smash anything that gets in my way!” He stared down at the irate X-Man, having gained at least a yard in stature. “See you finally decided to make it, pipsqueak.”

  “Yeah, nice to see you, too,” Wolverine snarled sarcastically. “This flamin’ reunion makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” He spit a mouthful of chewing tobacco onto the lawn. “C’mon. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  The door to the science building would have been too small to accommodate the Hulk’s gargantuan frame had not something equally immense already busted its way through. Fluorescent lights in the ceiling spared them any need for flashlights. With Wolverine leading the way, his adaman-tium claws extended before him, they stalked through the deserted lobby of the building, passing an overturned cedar desk and other evidence of the Abomination-Sentinel’s passage. But had the good-for-nothing robot already come and gone?

  How the heck am I supposed to know? the Hulk thought grumpily. I can bust heads, sure, but I ain’t no blamed detective!

  “Hey, shorty,” the Hulk addressed Wolverine. “You smell anything worth fighting?” He remembered that the feral X-Man had a nose like a bloodhound.

  “Er, not at the moment,” Wolverine answered vaguely, not bothering to look back at his gigantic companion. The Hulk’s sloping brow wrinkled in puzzlement. Wolverine was a lot of things, he knew, but evasive wasn’t exactly one of them.

  “What’s the matter?” the Hulk taunted. “Your sinuses clogged or something? I ain’t ever known that ugly snoot of yours to let you down before.”

  Wolverine spun around and glared at the Hulk, his claws held up in front of him like a boxer’s mitts. He bared his teeth as threateningly as his vicious namesake. Murder glinted in his cold brown eyes. “Listen, mister, I’ve had enough of your lip. If we didn’t have a job to do, and good people dependin’ on us, I’d teach you a lesson in manners right here and now.”

  “Oh yeah?” the Hulk answered, flexing his bulging biceps. That phony Abomination could wait; he’d like nothing better than to throw down with Wolverine more time. It had been too long since he’d last enjoyed a knock-down-drag-’em-out brawl with the scrappy Canadian. He raised his own titanic fists, his knuckles itching to knock Wolverine’s block off. “I don’t see anybody stoppin’ you.”

  At the back of his mind, a squeaky little voice, sounding suspiciously like Banner’s, argued that he didn’t have time for this, that there were more important things at stake. Tough luck, he thought. The sneer on his face turned into a merciless smirk, and he swung a roundhouse punch at Wolverine’s adamantium skull.

  The X-Man must have seen the blow com
ing. He ducked beneath the swinging fist and lashed out with his claws. All three blades on his right fist skewered the Hulk right through the giant’s left wrist. The Hulk roared in pain and yanked his arm back, shaking his wounded wrist free from the razor-sharp claws on which it was impaled. His gamma-irradiated flesh quickly restored itself, healing so fast that the puncture marks disappeared the instant his perforated wrist slid off the points of the claws. “Hah!” the Hulk laughed, unscathed even though the X-Man had drawn first blood. Compared to his own miraculous regenerative powers, Wolverine’s mutant healing factor might as well be hemophilia.

  But the feisty little mutant wasn’t about to surrender. “All right, big guy,” he dared the Hulk, crouched over in a defensive posture, rocking nimbly upon the balls of his feet. Emerald blood dripped from his claws. ‘ ‘Show me what you’ve got.”

  The Hulk wouldn’t have it any other way. Arms outstretched like logs hurled by a hurricane, he charged Wolverine, who dodged to the right a split-second before the Hulk could grab onto him. A dark blue boot caught the Hulk beneath the kneecap, a blow that would have crippled any other foe. Coming up behind the jade giant, Wolverine raked his claws across the Hulk’s massively muscled back, carving gouges that healed before he shed another drop of blood.

  “Arrgh!” the Hulk hollered, more in fury than in pain. The little punk was fast, he’d give him that, but that wouldn’t do him any good once he’d broken the pint-sized X-Man in two, adamantium skeleton or no adamantium skeleton. Turning on his opponent before Wolverine could once again slash him from behind, the Hulk connected with a backhanded swat that sent Wolverine skidding on his backside down the length of an empty hallway lined with closed office doors. The heels of the X-Man’s boots left scuff marks on the linoleum floor that stretched over fifty yards before Wolverine came to an abrupt halt, slamming into an aluminum storage cabinet at the end of the hall. His back and shoulders hammered a Wolverine-shaped dent into the metal door of the cabinet.

  Stop it! cried out that same tinny voice from the Hulk’s undernourished superego. Stop this now!

  The Hulk just grinned harder.

  Looking dazed, Wolverine shook his head back and forth violently, perhaps to forcibly expel any cobwebs, before springing to his feet and stampeding like an enraged bull at the Hulk, who had to throw up his arms at the last minute to avoiding being stabbed through the chest by half a dozen adamantium daggers. The claws sank into the rock-solid flesh of his forearms and the Hulk stamped his bare foot down on the linoleum hard, igniting tremors that sent the mutant berserker staggering backwards across the quaking floor.

  The Hulk stomped only once, but the tremors continued for several seconds thereafter. Momentarily distracted by the stinging scratches upon his arms, it took the Hulk a second to realize that something else was causing the floor to quiver beneath his feat. Wolverine froze in his tracks as well, also taking note of the strange phenomenon. “What the hey?” he blurted, looking from side to side.

  Their brutal struggle had carried the two champions midway down the empty corridor. Now two huge figures joined them—from opposite ends of the hall. Glancing from left to right, the Hulk found himself trapped between what looked like the Abomination ... and himself!

  “How ’bout that,” the Hulk muttered. Captain America and his Avenging buddies had been right after all; somebody really had been building duplicates of the Hulk and the rest of the gamma bunch. No wonder the Leader had taken an interest in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s latest dirty tricks. This was right down his alley.

  The Gamma Sentinels, each as tall as the Hulk himself, advanced on Wolverine and the original Hulk. “Identified: target designates: Hulk and Wolverine,” the bogus Abomination stated. His coarse, gravelly voice sure sounded like the Real McCoy, even if Emil Blonsky, the true Abomination, had never talked like a stinking robot. “Deadly force is mandated. Take no prisoners.”

  “Confirmed,” the other Hulk said. “Adopting termination protocols.”

  It was like listening to his voice on an answering machine. Do I really sound like that? the real Hulk wondered briefly.

  A whirring sound, like a tape recorder rewinding, came from the hulking, green-skinned Sentinel. “Hulk will smash! Hulk is the strongest one there is!”

  Now that’s just insulting, the Hulk thought, frowning. Who does he think he’s fooling?

  “Hey, Jade Jaws,” Wolverine said. “What you say we settle between us later.” He kept a close watch on both approaching Sentinels. “I think these bozos just moved to the top of our dance cards.”

  “Fine with me,” the Hulk agreed. Playtime was over; it was time to get some serious stomping in. * ‘The Abomination is mine. You take my evil twin.”

  Frankly, he would have enjoyed tearing his computerized double to pieces, but that might get too blasted confusing, for Wolverine, if nobody else.

  The last thing I want, the Hulk craftily considered, is a well-meaning Canuck jabbing me with those adamantium pigstickers of his in the mistaken impression he’s saving me from the clone.

  “Works for me,” Wolverine grunted, then launched himself at the Hulk-Sentinel. Silver claws glistened beneath the overhead lights and a low, predatory growl issued from the X-Man’s chest. The real Hulk caught only a glimpse of Wolverine’s attack on the artificial Hulk before his own chosen opponent came at him, scaly green claws tearing at his face.

  “Beware the Abomination!” the Sentinel bragged, as his dinosaur-like talons dug into the Hulk’s scalp, right behind his ears, and tried to twist the Hulk’s head from his shoulders. His reptilian face was less than an inch away from the Hulk’s own primeval features. “None can escape the Abomination!”

  Forget that! the Hulk decided. He’d had his neck broken once before, thank you very much, and once was enough; it had taken him literally weeks to recover last time. He wrenched his head from the mock Abomination’s grip and shoved the Sentinel’s scale-encrusted chest with both hands, with enough force to send the creature reeling backward a few steps. Too bad it’s not the real thing, the Hulk thought vindictively. He was always up to clobbering the Abomination, especially now that he’d learned that Blonsky was responsible for Betty’s death. “Tell you what,” he growled at the saurian Sentinel, “I’m going to pretend you’re the genuine article.” He slammed his fist into the Abomination’s face. “It’ll be more fun that way.”

  He had to admit this Abomination sure looked authentic. He had the same scalloped ears and bony skull, the same scaly hide and yellow fangs. He even punched as hard as Blonsky did.

  My tax dollars at work, he thought mordantly, even 1 90

  though neither he nor Banner had actually drawn a regular paycheck, let alone paid taxes, for years.

  His fists as rough and abrasive as a gator’s skin, this Abomination pounded the Hulk with seismological force, with the original green goliath giving just as good as he got. Their exchanged blows shook the building as they grappled at close quarters. Scaly hands locked around the Hulk’s bull-like neck, squeezing with enough force to reduce a diamond to dust, but the Hulk merely pummelled the Abomination’s ribs until the other monster was forced to loosen his grip. The Abomination’s fang-filled jaws snapped at the Hulk, trying to tear a great, chunk of muscle from the Hulk’s right shoulder; the sharpened incisors actually pierced green skin, in fact, yet tendons stronger than the thickest steel cable held the Hulk’s flesh to his bones. He retaliated by grabbing onto the wing-like flaps of the Abomination’s ears and yanking his misshapen head back so far that all the Hulk could see was his enemy’s upraised chin. Seizing the moment, the Hulk butted that chin with the top of his head. The sound of his foe’s teeth rattling was music to the Hulk’s ears.

  The homicidal monster was forced to release his death-grip on the Hulk’s throat in order to peel the Hulk’s fingers away from his ears.

  “Unhand the Abomination,” he recited. “The Abomination cannot be stopped.” One meaty finger at a time, he managed to pry the Hulk’s left hand away f
rom his ear, but the Hulk refused to release the other ear. Holding onto the membranous flap so tightly that his chartreuse knuckles turned white, the Hulk gave the ear a vicious twist. There was a harsh, ripping sound and the entire ear tore away from the left side of the Abomination’s head, revealing a peek at the gleaming metallic skull beneath. Concentric circles of small blinking lights radiated out from the Sentinel’s exposed auditory receptor. Shreds of synthetic skin and scales hung in tatters around the telltale glimpse of chromed silver.

  Scowling in disgust, the Hulk tossed the limp ear to the floor and ground it beneath his bare heel. The Sentinel’s unsightly injury spoiled the satisfying illusion that this was the real Abomination, Emil Blonsky himself, the slimy, nogood crumb who had poisoned the Hulk’s—that is. Banner’s—wife. It’s just another stupid robot who doesn 't have enough sense to get out of my way. the Hulk thought.

  His fun ruined, the Hulk decided to get things over with. “All right,” he snarled, “no more Mr. Nice Guy!” Catching the Abomination-Sentinel’s thrashing form in a head-lock, he spared a second to see how Wolverine was doing:

  The indomitable X-Man had somehow got onto the Hulk-SentinePs back, straddling him piggyback, his short legs locked around the Sentinel’s throat, while he hacked at the duplicate’s head with his flashing claws. Locks of unruly emerald hair littered the floor, but so far the other Hulk’s skull seemed to be made of sturdier stuff, perhaps even some new adamantium alloy. Wolverine had to duck his own head to avoid colliding with the ceiling, probably not a problem, the real Hulk reflected, that the pint-sized X-Man had to worry about very often.

  Rather than try to pull Wolverine from his shoulders, the phony Hulk bent his enormous knees, then launched himself straight up—through the ceiling and all the floors above. Peering up the newly-created shaft while wrestling with the relentless Abomination, the real Hulk spotted a satellite dish on the roof of the building, silhouetted against the full moon. Debris from every floor in-between, including, oddly enough, bits of ice and snow, fluttered down through the chasm carved out by his doppleganger’s stupendous leap.