THE INCREDIBLE HULK

by Jeremy Harker

Gatefold

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PART ONE

It had been said that the human body was only capable of existing in two different states--alive or dead. Similarly, though the postmodernism and multiculturalism of the 21st century presented mankind with a seemingly-endless menu of choices, when boiled down, it became clear that they all fell in one of two categories: to keep going or to give up. The former concept was celebrated by society, to the point of being deified in the popular mythology, the latter was scornfully labeled with terms that ranged from "pessimism" to "suicide". But at least one man had decided that he didn't like life or death, so he'd created a third option…

Night smothered San Francisco. It was cloudless, and the sky was a strangely-bright navy blue--it almost had a metallic sheen to it. A crescent moon, roughly the color of a pristine skeleton, could be seen clearly. The urban landscape had neon energy coursing through it, racing down freeways and turning tall buildings into yellow-and-black checkerboards. Thick, cool coastal winds washed over the city, offsetting the hours-old heat that was still emanating from the cement and concrete. A never-ending chorus of traffic sounded off, occasionally being muffled when the noisier cars went behind a building or through a tunnel. Spotlights shot out from between the skyscrapers, signifying that new restaurants were opening and movie premieres were taking place. Though the Pacific couldn't easily be seen in the darkness, it could be heard, giving the impression that the western edge of North America was bounded by a universe of soft radio static.

Headlights dipped, as a silver Saturn two-door went down one of the city's many hills. It was a rental. The vehicle turned towards a landscaped, well-lit neighborhood, which looked to be made up of small businesses. They were all just one story, but they seemed very modern and professional. There was an optometrist's office, a sporting goods store, a private physical therapy center, a tropical-fish-only pet store, and a daycare center. It was in the thick of the borderlands between the city and the suburbs, where one blended into the other. The Saturn trolled for parking spaces, and, amazingly, there were actually quite a few available. It pulled into one, eventually nudging to a halt. As soon as the door opened, the streetlights blinked…the driver paused, making sure it wasn't a blackout. After a few seconds, it became clear that everything was fine. She laughed it off--it was California, after all.

Dr. Paula Del Rio exited the car. She was in her early thirties, with long, wavy black hair, dark eyes, and a body that attested to the fact that she frequently went to the gym. Her face had a very serious, dignified look to it, which caused some people to think that she was standoffish. Though she was supposed to be on vacation, she didn't have much of a tan. This wasn't her element at all. She was a northeasterner; she was used to cramped, colonial architecture, not a sprawling, sunny city full of banners and flags and other festive decorations. Paula had tried her best to dress for the occasion--she'd chosen a faded blue tanktop and khaki shorts, intead of her usual mostly-black wardrobe--but she couldn't help but feel out-of-place. Closing the car door, she beeped the alarm on and unclipped her cell phone from her pocket. The street was completely empty. She dialed the number for her brother's new lab (which was right in front of her, the brown-bricked, black-windowed structure that had once been an R&D facility for a small company), but the machine came on after one ring. She knew he was in there; some of the lights were on. There was no point in trying to get him to pick up, though, he only set the machine like that when he was away from the phone. But she had to check on him, just to appease her own conscience.

The entire Del Rio family had come out here to celebrate her brother's newfound success. For years, Eric had been a perpetual college student, occasionally taking a semester or two off to do research on some project that would never pan out. He switched his major from advanced engineering to genetics to synthetic chemistry. There would be periods where they wouldn't hear from him for months on end. Then, out of nowhere, he announced that he was dropping out of school and buying a building that he could set up a private lab in. Doing so meant spending even more of the standard Del Rio nest egg that they all got at age twenty-one, and they were all really worried about him. This was especially true for Paula, who'd always been the overprotective older sister. But after just six months, he announced that he'd come up with a new kind of scanning technology that could be used in laser-surgery. (That was the simple version. Though the Del Rios were a family of intellectuals, the complex version had gone over even their heads.) He sold the patent for it to a biotech company, and got rich. Then, the company went public, expanded, the royalties came rolling in, and he got rich again.

At tonight's party (which had been held at his new apartment), Eric had been all smiles. He'd made quite a few jokes about finally being worthy of his last name. Of course, he showed off his lab, he gave a sneak preview of other projects he was working on, and he even surprised everyone with a young woman that might or might not have been his girlfriend. Though none of them would have said it out loud, it was a nice change of pace from the obsessive, antisocial Eric that had locked himself in his lab 24/7 and shown no interest in life. But somewhere amidst all the congratulations and goodbyes (their mother was going on a lecturing tour that would start at Caimbridge and end at Harvard, their father was headed back to his vacation on the French Riviera, youngest brother Sky was going back to his flat in Seattle, and half-sister Leigh was headed for an audition with an orchestra in New York), Paula had gotten a strange vibe. Paula was permanently on retainer with the FBI and major police departments as a forensic psychologist--sometimes that involved creating profiles of criminals that hadn't been apprehended yet, sometimes that involved interviewing criminals that were in custody. She lived in Washington, DC, but her work took her all over the country. Paula had been fascinated by the human mind for as long as she could remember; she considered it to be the last great frontier. And just a few hours earlier, surrounded by all that blatant happiness and optimism, she'd couldn't escape the fact that something didn't feel right. Every time anyone had tried to talk to Eric alone, he'd suddenly remember that he had something else to show them. He talked about his little hit parade, but never about himself. And the goodbyes had been serious, rather than casual. Though they all lived far apart, they saw each other quite a bit, and it just hadn't fit. Like the others, Paula had written it off as "I finally made it, thanks for supporting me" enthusiasm…at first, anyway. Halfway to the airport, she'd started to wonder. And right before she walked into the terminal, she'd felt the urge to turn around and make sure he was okay. He hadn't been at his apartment, so she'd come here.

Now, she was trying to come up with a reasonable-sounding excuse to have come back. She didn't feel right just walking up and hitting the buzzer, so she'd invented a few logical reasons to call. Her current favorite was to say that her flight had been cancelled. Paula speed-dialed his number again, and, again, the machine came on after only one ring. Even though she knew he wouldn't be anywhere near the machine, she tried to get his attention anyway:

"Hey, it's me. Pick up. My flight got cancelled, so I, uh, I thought maybe I could crash back at your place. I hate to go running around looking for a motel this late. You there?" She paused, giving him a chance to answer. "Believe it or not, I'm actually--I'm right outside. So if you want to just--" There was a beep, and a dial tone. Paula sighed--she'd forgotten how short the messages had to be, on his machine. Taking a deep breath, she walked right up to the front steps and hit the buzzer. A minute passed. She did it two more times, with the same non-response. It was now down to choosing between calling 911 and using the spare keycard he'd given her to barge in. Neither sounded good, but she couldn't think of a better alternative.

Then, she noticed that the lights in his lab had turned off--a sure sign that he'd be coming out in less than a minute. Paula immediately felt very silly and melodramatic about the whole thing. He'd probably been acting weird because he'd had a fight with his girl-who's-a-friend or something simple like that. She went back down onto the front walk, and worked on her cover story for being there. Eric didn't own a car, so he'd probably taken a cab over--she could give him a ride back, and use the "cancellation" as an excuse to stick around and make sure he was okay. It was a perfect plan, the only problem was that he never came out.

An eternity of five minutes later, there was a beeping noise, as Paula let herself in. She immediately said, "It's just me!" Everything was pitch-black, and she had trouble finding the lights. So, she settled for using the little flashlight that was on her keychain. A good portion of the building was still empty, as he didn't need that much space for his equipment. It wasn't anything to look at--just white walls and a blue-carpeted floor. She called his name a few times, and was greeted with silence. His gear was all in the back. Unsurprisingly, a million apocalyptic possibilities were running through Paula's mind. She'd seen hundreds of crime-scene photos; she knew how these things happened. But maybe it was just an accident…something related to the power flickering earlier, perhaps. She hoped that she'd humiliate herself by stumbling across Eric and the girl (or some girl) naked on the floor. Instead, she nearly tripped over what felt like a very hard, large lump.

Paula told herself not to panic. She was now in the lab, and she tried her best to remember its layout, so she could find the lights. (Her flashlight's beam was small, and it had a lot of ground to cover.) In her mind, she could picture its metal floor and chemicalproof walls, the giant table he used to assemble things, the fridge-sized, sci-fi-looking equipment in the middle of the room, the bank of computers and microscopes…and, yes, the light-switches were right by the big metal cabinets. The onslaught of brightness made her surroundings psychadelic for the first few seconds, but soon, everything revealed its true normalcy…everything except one object.

It was the lump. Human-sized, a shell made of an opaque violet crystal. White-black tendrils, which vaguely resembled coral, grew out of it and attached it to the floor. Threads of multicolored light were stitching inside it, like an organic communications network. Sometimes, a flurry of bubbles would pop up, making breathing sounds. Deeper within, vapor and condensation could be seen. There was no space between the tiling and the crystal--they'd fused together. And for a split-second, part of it became transparent, and she saw a familiar face.

Paula screamed. Frantically, she began jerking her head around, looking for something to smash it open with. She didn't notice the shower-like space in the wall behind the lump, which was lined with round, inverted spaces that looked like speakers. And she didn't notice the handwritten note on one of the black plastic countertops, either. No, she just pushed aside lightweight folding chairs and cardboard boxes full of papers, looking for anything big and heavy, but small enough to hold. Unfortunately, most of his equipment was quite large, and bolted to the floor. But she found an old metal stool in the next room--she grabbed it by its legs, ran full-speed at the lump, and brought the stool down as hard as she could. Not a dent. She felt the impact up to her shoulders, though her wrists especially hurt. As she prepared to bring it down for a second try, it fell apart in her hands.

Over the next few minutes, she moved at a blinding speed, testing out any number of possible solutions. Simply picking up the shell was out of the question--it was incredibly dense, and it was both fused and rooted to the floor, anyway. Though she'd never used a thermal-welder in her life, she'd seen Eric do it, and she used one to try to melt some cracks in the lump's surface. (Nothing happened.) In another room, she found a leftover from his less affluent days--a clunky old computer monitor that weighed a ton, which wasn't hooked up to anything. She pitched it at the lump a few times, until the monitor basically shattered. After that, she went through several chairs, one of those small file cabinets, and she even pushed a desk at it. By now, she was trying to reason with both Eric and the crystal mound, mostly using a string of pleadings and profanities.

While rummaging through his drawers, she saw the note on the countertop. Snatching it and reading it, her expression grew even more dismayed. "Eric…oh, god, no…"

Staring at the lump--no, staring at Eric--she knew that she was out of her depth. She'd have to call someone. The cops seemed like the most obvious choice, but no…she remembered the Senate hearings about what had happened to those superhuman prisoners. A whole bunch of government officials had been fired, and some had almost ended up in jail. If she told them about this, Eric could end up being dissected or something. Or maybe they'd lock him away somewhere, and she'd never see him again. Paula trusted the cops and agents that she knew, but there were too many legal black holes in the justice system for her liking; she couldn't risk losing Eric in one.

Paula backed up against a wall, slumping down to a sitting position. She couldn't bear to leave him. The rough outline of a plan began forming in her mind: tomorrow, she'd call her office and tell them that she'd changed her mind, she would be taking all of her vacation time at once. She had quite a bit built up. The Del Rios had money and connections--surely, they could find a way out of this. It would only be a matter of time. And she continued her denial long into the night…

The Incredible Hulk #1

Cocoon Blues

Continue on to PART TWO