Banner managed to tear his gaze away from the bomb. He felt sick. He was still trembling. The bomb chamber occupied a large section of the High Evolutionary’s Lowtown lair, a massive factory level above the lab that had been cleared out, its windows and skylights sealed. The bomb seemed to fill it. He looked around at the High Evolutionary.
“Surprised?” he echoed.
“As though he did not know what he had made,” said the High Evolutionary. “He was working on the ultimate weapon. He knew this. He was successful. Where was his sense of accomplishment?”
“Accomplishment?” Banner stammered.
“I see the same horror in you, too, Doctor Banner, and find it somewhat mystifying. You also employed your scientific genius to such ends. To this end, in fact: the gamma bomb. Yet you are appalled at the reality of it.”
“I know what it is capable of,” said Banner.
“You knew what it would be capable of before you built it,” replied the High Evolutionary.
Banner wiped his mouth. He wished he could stop his hands from shaking so badly. He felt as though he were returning to the scene of a crime—or coming face-to-face with his deepest, most private nightmare. The gamma bomb was both his shame and his curse, his abuser and his wayward child. He had spent years wishing that he could expunge any trace of it.
Yet here he was, in the same room with it. The bomb was a physical thing. It was undeniable.
He felt his skin prickle. He wondered whether that was the radiation, or his own conscience.
“What appalls you more, Doctor Banner?” asked the High Evolutionary. “The weapon’s destructive potential, or your own?”
“I don’t have to listen to your—”
“I think you do.”
The High Evolutionary walked forward and gazed up at the bomb housing.
“Put simply,” he said, “this bomb can destroy billions of lives, but it is merely a machine. It has no agency. It simply achieves your intent. It is the means by which you can destroy billions of lives.”
“Shut up,” said Banner, looking away.
“The gamma bomb was not an accidental byproduct of innocent research. It was always going to be a bomb. You knew that before you began. Yet you act as if you didn’t know what you were doing. As if it is a monster that you didn’t mean to create.”
“You have no idea how much I regret…” Banner began. “You have no idea. I would give anything to—”
The High Evolutionary looked at him.
“Actually,” he said, “it is very common for the inventors of successful weapons to experience great remorse in later years. To hate themselves for what they have given the world. You, of course, are a singular case. Not only do you hate the monster you made, you hate the monster that it made out of you.
“That’s the point, isn’t it? Destructive potential. This is not guilt by proxy. You built a device of unimaginable destructive power. That would be burden enough. But the consequence was the literal unleashing of your own destructive power, not by association but in the flesh. And you can’t control either of them.”
“Please,” said Banner. “You don’t know me, Wyndham. You don’t know the torments I’ve endured. As one scientist to another, I beg you, stop this. Dismantle the bomb. Make it safe.”
The High Evolutionary studied Banner’s face for a moment.
“I am quite moved, Doctor,” he said at last. “Your pain is palpable. It is genuine.”
“Then please—”
“How would you feel, Doctor Banner, if I told you that this bomb could save the world rather than end it?”
Banner sighed. “I’m tired of your cryptic remarks, Wyndham.”
“The world is going to end,” said the High Evolutionary.
“So I see.”
“What you see is the means to prevent that end. This is redemption, Doctor—the redemption you have always desired. To see the horror you created used for good. To save the world rather than obliterate it. You could reject Oppenheimer’s assertion, sir. You would become not Death, but rather Life.”
“It’s a bomb, Wyndham! A damned bomb! You’re already causing unbelievable damage to this city through contamination. When you detonate this—”
Banner looked at the bomb, his hands raised.
“—millions will die here. Instantly,” he continued. “I can only guess at the yield, but I can predict that millions of lives will be lost in the Pacific region from the explosion alone, before we even get to secondary physical destruction such as tsunamis and seismic disturbances. And from the look of the design, that’s not even the primary destructive purpose. The gamma blast is just the propagator. The fallout will irradiate the planet. Ionizing radiation, Wyndham. Billions more will die slowly and horribly. The entire population of the world.”
“The human race will be irradiated,” the High Evolutionary said, nodding. “Those who do not perish in the blast. I predict that one-tenth of the world’s population will perish in the detonation. The losses are unfortunate but necessary collateral. Irradiation is my actual goal.”
“Why? How is that saving the world? You’re insane! You—”
Banner stopped shouting. His mind was racing. His eyes opened wide. He remembered the whiteboards in the High Evolutionary’s lab.
“You’re the High Evolutionary,” he whispered.
“I am,” replied Wyndham.
“Gamma radiation…” Banner said, thinking fast. “Gamma radiation can be used for genetic manipulation. Exposure damages DNA. It breaks the bonds of DNA molecules.”
“Indeed it does,” said the High Evolutionary.
“That happens under natural levels of exposure,” said Banner, “and our cells just mobilize their DNA repair mechanisms to fix the breaks. Sometimes those mechanisms add or delete little bits of DNA in the process.”
“Many think that is how color variation in flowers began,” agreed the High Evolutionary.
“So you engineer a virus,” said Banner. The scrawlings on the whiteboards were now vivid in his mind’s eye. “A latent virus that you introduce to the human population.”
“It is already introduced,” replied the High Evolutionary. “It is something I had previously developed. For the last five weeks, my agents have been disseminating it worldwide. Distribution projections now indicate that the entire species will be carrying it within three days.”
Banner nodded, understanding.
“And gamma exposure would cause breaks in human DNA,” he said, “allowing the latent viral DNA to be incorporated into human DNA via natural repair. In a stroke, you rewrite human genetic code.”
“Your grasp is adequate,” the High Evolutionary said.
“What does the genetic recoding do?” asked Banner. “What is the resulting trait?”
“Docility,” Wyndham replied.
“You intend to engineer humans into a slave race?”
“I am referring to a tranquility of nature,” the High Evolutionary replied. “Contentment. Pacification. A loss of aggression, of energetic aspiration, of blind appetite. An end, for example, to the human predisposition to war, to conflict, to rebellion and disobedience, to intolerance, to fanaticism and international rivalry. The virus will establish suggestibility…the willingness to respond happily, and without the need for duress, to simple authority.”
“Your authority?” said Banner.
“I am become Life, the savior of worlds,” replied the High Evolutionary. “I am no tyrant. I am a benign force, and you cannot doubt my intelligence or capability. I will steadfastly minister to the needs of an obedient species, care for it and safeguard its future.”
“You’re going to save us from our own nature?” asked Banner.
“In a way.”
“And the price is a few billion deaths—either from the blast, or from high-dose cell death among those too exposed to survive?”
“I estimate a viable survivor population of just under one billion,” said the High Evolutionary. “A terr
ible cost? Yes, of course. A scientist must make hard decisions, and a god must make yet harder ones. But it is worthwhile compared to the alternative.”
“I’m going to ignore the fact you just called yourself a god,” said Banner sourly. “What is this alternative? You keep alluding to some end-state threat.”
“It is very real,” said the High Evolutionary. “Planet Earth will be eliminated unless it is brought under effective regulatory control.”
“Eliminated by whom?”
The High Evolutionary did not reply. He turned as the dog-hybrid entered the bomb chamber. Banner felt a shudder of psionics, and realized the hybrid was communicating with its master.
“Problem?” Banner asked.
“I have been informed that your S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague has managed to escape from holding,” replied the High Evolutionary. “He will be found and recaptured shortly.”
Run, McHale, Banner thought. Run and don’t stop running until you’ve found help.
As the dog-hybrid left, the High Evolutionary turned to face Banner.
“Will you assist me? he asked.
“Assist you?”
“Now you see what’s at stake, Doctor Banner. Now you appreciate how your monstrous creation can be transformed into a tool to save humankind. The redemption of which I spoke.”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?” asked Banner.
“I am a polymath, Doctor. So are you, in your way. But your particular specialty is gamma radiation and its delivery systems. I seek to refine the gamma bomb, to minimize its blast effect and maximize its atmospheric irradiation. I believe you have the expertise to guide me in this task. It is a discipline I would master in time—but, as I stated previously, time is not on my side. You can make this necessarily painful process more humane.”
“And in return I get…redemption?”
“Yes,” said the High Evolutionary. “But I can offer you another incentive besides. I can heal you. I can repair your woefully damaged DNA. I can cure you of the Hulk.”
* * *
BANNER sat down on a lab stool and reached out a hand to steady himself against the workbench. Another old-fashioned record was playing in the artificially sunlit room beyond.
The High Evolutionary walked in and offered Banner a glass of scotch.
Banner shook his head.
The High Evolutionary put down the glass on the bench near Banner’s hand.
“How?” asked Banner, his voice very small.
“Exposure to gamma radiation causes chromothripsis, Doctor. Do you know what—”
“DNA double-strand breaks,” said Banner. “They are the hardest type to repair. High-dose exposure usually results in cell death or grotesque cancers, then body death.”
“Yet you did not die,” said the High Evolutionary.
Banner looked up.
“What?”
“You were caught in a test-site blast, but you did not die. No cell death, no cancer, no body death.”
“It was a fluke. I got lucky.” Banner laughed humorlessly. “Lucky,” he repeated.
The High Evolutionary pulled up another lab stool and sat down facing him.
“Prior exposure to gamma radiation,” he said, “perhaps even through your father, resulted in you carrying a mutation in the PRKDC gene. That gene is responsible for the production of an enzyme, a hyper-functional DNA-dependent protein kinase. It helps repair DNA double-strand breaks. That is why you did not perish on that testing field.”
“Are you serious?”
“Always. Doctor Banner, that protein can also produce errors in the genetic code. In your case, the gamma radiation resulted in mutations to the adrenaline receptors that cause your cells to express the four Yamanaka transcription factors whenever you are exposed to too much adrenaline.”
Banner stood up.
“I saw that!” he said. “On your whiteboards.”
He walked over to the wall, putting his glasses back on.
“The Yamanaka factors induce adult cells to reenter the pluripotent stem-cell state,” he said.
“Your genetic knowledge is impressive,” said the High Evolutionary.
“It’s been a preoccupation,” Banner said, with a slight snarl. “Here—” He tapped a section of the board. “Myc, Oct3/4, Sox2, and Klf4. The transcription factors.”
“Stem cells can become any cell in the body, and produce any chemical or enzyme encoded in their genes in any quantity,” said the High Evolutionary. “In response to any threat, your cells undergo rapid evolution from stem-cell state. The greater the threat, the greater the cellular evolution it takes to compensate. You become stronger, more resilient. Somatic hyper-mutation occurs in your immune system. Affinity maturation ensures that only the strongest cells thrive. You become the Hulk. When the threat diminishes, the adrenaline stops flooding, and the signal to the Yamanaka factors ceases. Your cells revert to their epigenetic programming. You become Banner again.”
Banner took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“I can even explain why your counterpart is green,” said the High Evolutionary.
“What?
“Endo-symbiosis of green algae, is my theory,” said the High Evolutionary. He seemed to be enjoying himself. It was apparently rare for him to converse with anyone who could follow his thinking. “You were gray to begin with, I believe, but then incorporated algae into your DNA. That allows you to draw energy from the sun. And it also explains why the Hulk can grow much more massive than the chemical components of Bruce Banner should allow.”
Banner put his glasses back on.
“It’s a theory,” he said. “There have been many. When I asked ‘what,’ I was being rhetorical.”
“Even rhetorical questions can have illuminating answers.”
“And how would you cure me?” Banner asked.
“I would target and switch off the mutations in your adrenaline receptors. I would stop them expressing the transcription factors. You would be Banner again, and Banner alone.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Doctor Banner, it would be a pleasure and an honor to ease your burden and end your curse.”
“And in return, I help you build a better bomb?”
“I can only save the world by destroying a great deal of it,” replied the High Evolutionary. “This fact pains me, but there is no other way. If you can help me keep that loss and suffering to the absolute minimum, it would be a humanitarian act of the highest order. Neither of us wants to be a monster, Doctor.”
Banner walked back to the bench, picked up the glass of scotch, and downed its contents fast. He wiped his mouth and sighed deeply.
“What is the threat, Wyndham?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“You’re asking me to collude with you in the mass-murder of millions. Doesn’t matter how noble the reason, or how much the end result will benefit some greater good—that’s a hell of a thing. A hell of a thing. So tell me. Why? What is the threat?”
The High Evolutionary hesitated.
“It is complex,” he said. “Doctor, I—”
“Back away, Doc. Slowly.”
Banner looked around.
McHale was standing in the doorway. He was dirty and disheveled, and he looked desperate.
“I said back away from that freak, now!” he ordered.
McHale was aiming a weapon at the High Evolutionary. It was a large pistol of advanced design, chrome-plated and exotic.
“Really, Agent,” said the High Evolutionary, starting to rise.
“Sit down, Wyndham!” McHale snapped. He trained the weapon firmly, adopting his modified Weaver stance. “Not a word. Not a movement. I know what you can do. I found your arsenal, Wyndham—your stockpile of tech—and I helped myself to this fusion pistol. I don’t know if this can kill the likes of you, but I do know it will mess you up bad. One move, and I shoot. You’ll go down, and you’ll be eating through a straw for years.”
He glanced at Banner.
“We’re leaving, Doc,” he said.
“McHale—”
“Right now. You and me. We get out, and we signal S.H.I.E.L.D. This ends.”
“You should have run, McHale. You should have gotten clear when you had the chance. You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“Yeah, well, I did,” said McHale. “I’m a super hero, remember? Dale McHale. I don’t leave friends behind. We’re going now.”
“McHale, you shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“That sense of humor you got, Doc—it’s still pretty hard to appreciate. Come on. Get behind me. We’re heading out through the back. I’ll cover you.”
Banner walked over to the doorway until he was behind McHale.
“Doctor Banner,” said the High Evolutionary. “I thought we had arrived at an understanding.”
“I said that’s enough, Wyndham!” McHale growled. “Shut up. Don’t make me use this thing. We’re walking, and you’re going to let us.”
“I’m afraid I simply can’t allow that,” replied the High Evolutionary, standing up.
“Damn you,” said McHale.
He lurched forward suddenly, crashed into the bench, and fell to the floor, the weapon sliding from his fingers.
Banner lowered the heavy, antique microscope with which he’d hit McHale. He knelt down and checked McHale’s pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said. “Out cold. I wish I hadn’t had to do that. Can we get him medical treatment?”
“Of course, Doctor,” replied the High Evolutionary.
“I wish I hadn’t had to do that,” Banner repeated.
“Doctor,” said the High Evolutionary, “the very fact that you did it tells me everything I need to know.”
SIXTEEN
WASHINGTON, D.C.
10.10 LOCAL, JUNE 12TH
OKAY, let’s assume I’ve spent this morning so far in a hot tub with a tray of mimosas,” said Tony Stark as he entered the room. “What’s the situation?”
Looking at him were more than thirty State Department officials; Secret Service agents; senior aides; Homeland Security, CIA, and NSA officers; and Air Force commanders. His Iron Man armor was dented and scratched. His faceplate was raised.