Hulk

Bruce Banner, half-blinded by the lights, sat up, and saw the figure of a man approaching him in a slow, shambling manner. Nevertheless, he recognized his father almost instantly. Slowly David Banner traversed the length of the hangar, stepping right up and in between the electromagnets. It was a not-so-subtle message to his son, Bruce realized. If Bruce began to transform into the Hulk, his father would share his fate. Perhaps David thought this was generous, or a show of goodwill on his part. To Bruce it simply qualified as just desserts.

  He stood before his son and hung his head.

  “I should have killed you,” Bruce whispered with ill-concealed venom.

  “As I should have killed you,” his father acknowledged.

  “I wish you had,” replied Bruce. He sank down onto the cot, his head in his hands. “I saw her last night. In my mind’s eye. I saw her face. Brown hair, brown eyes. She smiled at me, she leaned down and kissed my cheek. I can almost remember a smell, like desert flowers—”

  “Her favorite perfume,” said the father.

  “My mother. I don’t even know her name,” said Bruce, starting to cry.

  At the other end of the hangar, Betty and her father watched on the monitors. The sound was low, distorted, but they could just make out the conversation. And Betty had to admit something to herself: As messed up as her relationship with Thunderbolt Ross might have been, he was Father of the Year compared to the nut Bruce had gotten stuck with.

  David Banner didn’t seem bothered at all by his son’s sobs. “That’s good. Crying will do you good.” He walked toward his son and reached out with manacled hands.

  Betty couldn’t help but be appalled. To see this man suddenly trying to act solicitous after the things he’d said, the things he’d done. She was relieved to see Bruce pull back from him.

  “No, please don’t touch me,” Bruce said, recoiling. “Maybe, once, you were my father. But you’re not now. You never will be.”

  “Is that so?” asked David. His eyes narrowed. All pretense of affection and compassion were evaporating. “Well, I have news for you. I didn’t come here to see you. I came for my son.”

  Betty was confused when she heard that, and Bruce was obviously no less so.

  David Banner continued, “My real son . . . the one inside you. You are merely a superficial shell,” and his voice started to get louder, “a husk of flimsy consciousness surrounding him, ready to be torn off at a moment’s notice.”

  “Think whatever you like,” Bruce said tiredly. “I don’t care. Just go now.”

  And then the father seemed to look right into the camera, sneering at Betty, before leaning in toward Bruce and murmuring so softly that no one monitoring the conversation could hear him. That was Betty’s first warning that something truly disastrous was going to happen.

  Bruce tried to back away, but his father gripped his legs and held him in place. “But Bruce,” he whispered, “I have found a cure—for me.” His tone grew more menacing. “You see, my cells, too, can transform. Absorb enormous amounts of energy, but unlike yours, they’re unstable. Bruce, I need your strength,” he said with growing urgency. “I gave you life, now you must give it back to me—only a million times more radiant, more powerful.”

  “Stop,” said Bruce, trying to pull away.

  “Think of it,” David said, and he made a gesture that took in the entirety of the hangar. “All those men out there, in their uniforms, barking and swallowing orders, imposing their petty rule over the globe. Think of all the harm they’ve done, to you, to me—and know we can make them and their flags and their anthems and governments disappear in a flash. You . . . in me.”

  Bruce was aware that his continued existence hinged on keeping absolutely calm, but at that instant he didn’t care.

  “I’d rather die,” he said.

  “And indeed you shall,” his father assured him, sounding as if he were trying to be accommodating. “And be reborn a hero of the kind that walked the earth long before the pale religions of civilization infected humanity’s soul.”

  All the possibilities of the moment went through Bruce’s trained, analytical mind as he looked deep into the eyes of his demented parent. And he suddenly was certain that whatever his father was talking about, it wasn’t just the ravings of a lunatic. He definitely had some sort of plan, and although there was no questioning that he was—as Bruce’s adopted mother used to say—crazy as a soup sandwich, there was also no questioning his brilliance. Bruce was positive that his father had a plan, and the ability to pull it off. And it involved Bruce Banner.

  Knowing he was triggering his own destruction, but determined to head off whatever the hell his father was up to, Bruce leaped to his feet and screamed, “Go!”

  The shout was directed to those who held his life in their hands. He wanted them to go ahead, to annihilate him right then and there.

  Enough already.

  Betty, he thought bleakly, and he wasn’t sure if it was his mind thinking that or another’s, but then he heard the electromagnets powering up and knew it should take no more than a few seconds. He thought he heard Betty cry out in dismay, but she was very, very far away, and it hadn’t been much of a life, but damn, it had been interesting. . . .

  And David Banner, thinking that he’d been the subject of the strangled “Go!” snarled, “Stop your bawling, you weak little speck of human debris. I’ll go. Just watch me go!”

  With that, displaying a strength that he shouldn’t have possessed, he grabbed one of the thick electrical cables lying on the floor and tore it apart. The live wires sputtered, and then he took them into his mouth, a perversion of a newborn being suckled by its mother. Overhead, the klieg lights in the hangar began to sputter.

  “No!” howled Bruce, and he jumped toward his father but was bounced back by the current. If he’d seen his own reflection as he hit the floor, he would have seen a definite hint of green in his eyes.

  “What the hell!” shouted Ross, watching the confrontation between the two Banners spiral out of control. Betty, sensing something was wrong beyond the catastrophes they already had to deal with, tried to stop the soldier from slamming the switch home.

  But it was too late as the soldier at the controls, already extremely jumpy, yanked down on the switch. The electromagnetic arrays came to life and a burst of enormous energy surged from them. But instead of radiating out, their energy flowed directly into the outstretched arms of David Banner . . .

  . . . and kept on flowing.

  The lights on the island, then on the bridges, and then throughout the entire Bay Area, went out.

  Bruce watched in horror as his father, his body coursing with electrical energy, crackled and broke open his shackles. The arrays imploded in a flash. David flung out his arms, sending up an electromagnetic field that made the entire hangar sizzle.

  The monitors went dark. Even the headlights and the ignition systems of the vehicles sputtered out.

  “Hit them again,” shouted Thunderbolt Ross.

  “We can’t, sir!” one of the soldiers said desperately, manipulating controls that had gone dead. “There’s no power, some kind of counterelectromagnetic field—”

  “Then move in there with everything you’ve got,” said Ross. “Fire at will.”

  It won’t do any good, thought Betty, who was becoming rather tired of being right all the time.

  The father, laughing, looked over at where Bruce had been thrown—and was met by a huge green fist which lifted him, in a lightning flash, into the air, through the roof of the hangar, and across the bay. The Hulk, with a roar, leaped after him

  . . . smash . . . killer . . . murder . . . smash him, yes, SMASH HIM . . .

  and for the first time the minds of the Hulk and Bruce Banner were not split, were not pulling against one another, but instead were acting as one vast engine of destruction, aimed straight at their mutual father.

  He collided in midair with his father and the impact carried them miles into the night as a firestorm of electricity crackle
d around them. They landed by the edge of a distant mountain lake, staggered back, and faced each other. The slightly waning moon stared down at them.

  David Banner stood almost as tall as the Hulk, the electricity now drained from his body, laughing. “You see, nothing can stop me, son. I absorb it all, and give it back.”

  The Hulk roared at his father, a sound so loud and unique that it registered on one of the monitors at Ross’s command center.

  “They’re painted,” said a technician. “Snider Lake.”

  “Call up the task force,” Ross ordered.

  Unaware of who or what was coming for him, and uncaring as well, the Hulk pounded David Banner with both fists. But not only did it not seem to bother him, but with each blow Banner took he seemed to grow bigger, greener, absorbing the Hulk’s energy, his cellular structure. The Hulk stepped back, regarded him with horrified confusion as the father stood. They were the same height.

  Once more Banner’s mind informed the Hulk as they thought, What the fu—?

  “Go on, son,” David Banner said defiantly. “The more you fight me, the more of you I become.”

  The Hulk was more confused now, and kept his distance—ready to strike but holding back. Then he crouched down and, scooping up an enormous boulder, lifted it and crashed it down on David. Instantly it caused his father to transform into stone, which would have been daunting . . . for anyone who was incapable of shattering stone. But that definitely wasn’t the Hulk’s problem, as he pounded away, again and again, his rage growing and his strength escalating. With a final blow, he reduced his father to a pile of dust and rock fragments. They fell on the Hulk, and he pushed them off in what he thought was the end of the problem.

  But in doing so, he transferred energy back to his father that David Banner was able to reshape his body so that he once more mirrored the physical makeup and endurance of the Hulk.

  . . . killer . . . murderer . . . smash, kill, tear, rend limb from limb, kill . . .

  In a white-hot fury, the Hulk lashed out once again with his fists. The two of them, locked in a struggle, made their way to the lake’s edge, wildly pounding away at each other. With each blow, the air around them seemed to grow cold, vacant. Even the water began to turn opaque and icy. The two of them seemed almost to merge as the lake’s water began to freeze around them.

  Having their subjects targeted via long-range signals bounced off satellites, Ross and Betty stood at the monitors back at the hangar. Betty’s mind was racing, trying to come up with some means of stepping in without getting herself or Bruce or both of them killed. Nothing was occuring to her.

  “Strange,” said Colonel Thomas at one of the monitors, zooming in on one of the satellite images. “We’re reading a phenomenal drop in temperature there but a simultaneous radiological activity.”

  Ross looked blankly at his daughter. “The ambient energy,” said Betty matter-of-factly. “They’re absorbing it all. That’s where the additional mass comes from. They’re literally converting energy into matter.”

  “Can they convert it back?”

  “If they can,” Betty said softly, “we’re all dead.”

  Fighter jets flew overhead, passing by the two enormous figures, locked in a death grip, upon a lake that was now completely frozen. Sparks of energy, neural charges, spiked through the frozen water.

  And as the Hulk struggled in that frozen grip, the mind and thoughts of Bruce Banner struggled against the Hulk’s, seeking something, grabbing at something, and there were Thousands of images, bits of memory and desire, suddenly coalesced into a moment of absolute calm and clarity in the Hulk’s frozen eyes, and he knew right where to look, right when to look; it was right there, right there, Christmas, David Banner sat on the floor playing with his son, fighting, except it was in play, each of them holding a stuffed toy, one of those two toys, and Bruce said, “This one can fly, he’s faster,” and David replied, “But mine will eat yours right up!” and the way he said it caused momentary panic in Bruce, and his little features tightened, and he said, “No! He won’t, mine is flying away,” and David smiled and said, “Yes, you’re flying away!” and he threw the doll down and it was

  right

  there.

  Right where it had always been, the knowledge he needed, the obligation upon him, the way to beat him, the way to defeat himself, right there in the pointlessness of the dolls battling and giving up and flying away, and when he spoke it was to his father or to himself, it didn’t matter. It was all the same as he wondered if he’d ever even had a father, or just another incarnation of himself, and his voice was utterly calm as he said, “I know how you plan on winning, Father,” and his father said, “Do you know?” and Bruce told him, “By harnessing my rage,” and there was the approving laughter of a father who was finally proud of his son for making an intuitive leap, and he said, “Yes, I will take it from you,” and Bruce replied, “But you won’t—because I will take it from myself,” and the father, genuinely interested, asked, “And how will you do that?” to which Bruce answered, “By forgiving you. Take him. He’s yours.”

  And the ice was cracking beneath their feet as David Banner rose up from the melting ice, lifted the Hulk’s fist, and held it to his stomach. The Hulk struggled, but he was bewildered and unfocused, as if he didn’t know what to do with his rage—or no longer possessed it at all.

  “Come to me, my son,” said David Banner.

  The Hulk seemed to dissolve, but Bruce Banner could be glimpsed briefly inside the falling shape as it dropped into the lake. His father, victorious, towered above the mountains. He saw on the horizon a fleet of puny Stealth fighters and jets making their way toward him, and he laughed and laughed, and his laughter resounded like thunder.

  Then he paused, and looked down at his stomach. Swirling energy radiated into his whole body making it bigger, bigger. He thrashed about, looking for his son or the Hulk, and began to scowl.

  “You!” he shouted to no one. “The reaction—you tricked me! Take it back! It’s not stopping!”

  Nor was it. It spun out of control, the different energies colliding, his body absorbing everything, the moonlight, the air, the wind, and when there was nothing else, his body—seeking new energy sources—found the largest one around: itself. His body literally began to devour itself, the effect flowing from the middle and surging outward, and as the father clutched at himself and screamed and howled, a voice sounded in his head, and it might have been his own, but it sounded like his son’s. And the words—the parting words from his offspring—burned into his fevered consciousness.

  . . . things fall apart . . . the center cannot hold . . .

  David Banner stumbled to the top of the mountain, and this time he didn’t notice the fighters swiftly approaching from behind.

  And in the far, far distance, Thunderbolt Ross looked at his daughter as he gave the final order. “Gentlemen, release.”

  The thermonuclear missile took off from one of the planes, heading straight for the father who continued to grow and distend in an agony of energy. Something warned him at the last moment, and he turned and saw it coming. For a half-second a grin split his face as he anticipated more energy to absorb, but then he realized, Too much! Too much!

  . . . the center cannot hold. Best wishes from this rough beast . . .

  The missile struck him and his center shredded and blew apart, unable to contain it, as a massive explosion—an explosion evocative of that which had haunted Bruce and Betty’s dreams for as long as they could remember—engulfed the sky.

  On the monitors, they watched the explosion grow larger and larger, and Thunderbolt Ross, grim, lowered his head and put his face in his hands.

  And bridging the barrier of years and resentment, Betty reached across and put a hand on his. “It’s okay,” she whispered as, on the monitor, the planes pulled back and away and the winds rose to the heavens. “It’s okay.”

  the cross of red

  It was several months later that Betty Ross, s
tudying twisted strands of DNA under the lens of a microscope, answered the ringing phone that was to her immediate left. These days she never positioned herself far from a telephone. She never knew who might finally call . . . or when . . . presuming he could . . .

  So lost in thought was she that it took a few moments for it to penetrate that her father’s voice was saying repeatedly, “Betty, is that you?”

  She sighed. “Hi, Dad.”

  “I’m glad I caught you,” said Ross.

  She looked at the materials she was deep in the middle of researching, and smiled to herself. Catching her was never a problem; she was in the lab practically all the time. She didn’t have much of a personal life; then again, at this particular point in time, she wasn’t all that interested in pursuing one. Her father, of course, knew all that. Nevertheless, they had this little ritual they pursued every time he called, and she went along with it. “I’m glad you called,” she replied, and she genuinely was.

  “Betty—” He hesitated, which was unusual for him. He was usually the king of coming straight to the point. “You and I, we both know, of course, that Banner, well, he couldn’t have survived that, that explosion and all . . .”

  She’d been slouching a bit, but now she straightened. “Dad, what’s up?”

  “You know, the usual loonies,” said Ross with a sigh, “thinking they’ve spotted big green guys.”

  “They have,” she replied, relaxing slightly. “On the side of their frozen bean packages.”

  “I know this goes without saying,” her father began, and she hated that phrase, because naturally if something went without saying, it wouldn’t be necessary to say it. Ross continued, “But if, and I say if, by any chance he should try to contact you, try to get in touch, you’d tell me now, wouldn’t you?”

  She actually laughed at that. Once upon a time, what she was about to say would have annoyed the hell out of her. Now she just found it funny, having surrendered to the Big Brother absurdity of her life. “No, I wouldn’t. You know as well as I do, I wouldn’t have to. My phones are bugged, my house is under surveillance, my computers are tapped. So contacting me is the last thing I’d ever want Bruce to do, because—” Betty hesitated, her voice choking slightly. Suddenly this had become a good deal harder than she thought. “—because I love him; I always will. And I pray to God every night and every morning that he never tries to see me or talk to me again for the rest of my life.”