CHAPTER ONE

The sad truth was that, until the bomb, Dr. Bruce Banner had never felt any real loyalty to anything other than science. According to experts, not having a stake in the way things were--something a person thought was worth supporting, worth fighting for--was the kind of thing that could lead people to become criminals or terrorists. If you didn't have a significant, positive connection to society, you were much more likely to betray it. These connections usually came in the form of human relationships. Unfortunately, the statistics looked even bleaker if the culture was tilted against people like you. What was the point of supporting a nation or a philosophy that was marginalizing or outright targeting your kind of people? Some who went through this experience became violently antagonistic, while others withdrew into themselves and lead hermit-like existences. Bruce had done both: the latter willingly, the former not so much. But after becoming the Hulk, he had found a way to be loyal to humanity--he knew he had to find either a cure or a way to kill himself, for the greater good.

Growing up, Bruce hadn't been living in the kind of siutation he'd have preferred, to say the least. His father had also been a scientist working for the military, and they'd lived out in the middle of a blisteringly-hot nowhere. The late Mr. Banner had never been the kind of scientist that Bruce wanted him to be. While Bruce was fascinated by the radical, theoretical aspects of science, his father was relentlessly dispassionate and dull about the whole thing. He had a real blue-collar mentality. To him, his work was about as fascinating as painting or carpentry--he didn't care about science's social ramifications, or the questions and possibilities it created. Bruce longed for intellectual nourishment, the kind that he couldn't seem to find in their neck of the desert. And, for all the talk about how school and learning was important, he found that smart people actually weren't treated that well. Bruce was alienated by children and adults alike…if they couldn't find a way to use him, they didn't want anything to do with him.

Then, one day, he'd stumbled across a magazine article that had given him hope. It was about a family of prodigies that lived in Boston. There were eccentric parents and a cast of brilliant, bright-futured children that existed in a world he could only dream of. It was the way things should have been. They were famous and rewarded for being intelligent, traipsing through labs and galleries and conferences and elite parties. To cope with his depression, Bruce had come to convince himself that being a genius meant you had to be ostracized and lonely, since you'd have nothing in common with normal people. But upon reading that article, he saw that you could have the best of both worlds. He wanted to be around interesting, unusual intellectuals, not military conformists and immature classmates. He wanted to live in a place that valued people like him.

For years, achieving that kind of lifestyle had been Bruce's holy grail. He'd even wanted to meet the family--the Del Rios--once he was more established. There had been a whole fantasy worked out in his head, where he'd impress them and they'd accept him. But now, while he was at a low point that had lasted longer than he cared to remember, one of the Del Rios was sleeping just a few feet away from him…

Sheet lightning sounded off over Nevada. Rain steadily pelted the shallow sand, cascading off of bizarre rock formations and creating dirty streams that were just a few inches wide. No living creatures could be seen. Though it was morning, the sky had been overtaken by swelling black clouds. Wind shot through strangely-layered canyons. This area of the southwest was ripe with thousands of large stones that were sticking out of the ground at odd angles; some had overhangs that led into cramped caves. Several, however, were big enough to fit a vehicle or two in. The interior of one such cave wasn't much to look at. Brown and grey pebbles blanketed the ground, the walls were devoid of any Native-American artwork or interesting bugs, and it didn't have much of a view. (You could see a jagged circle of desert in the middle of all that darkness.) But that was just one part of the cave.

Further inside--past the unseen security-system, past the secret passage--there were three rooms. The first was a tight garage, which contained an old, grey pickup that looked like it had gone fifteen rounds with a semi. Beyond that was the main room. It had a low-hanging, natural ceiling, and many different things were jammed into a relatively small amount of space. There were computers and microscopes on white, super-lightweight folding tables, flatscreen monitors that hung on the walls (they were crudely connected to each other and other devices by tangles of wires), larger pieces of scientific equipment that were as tall as a person, and even a fridge and an army-green cot. Dr. Paula Del Rio was currently sleeping on it, covered by an ugly brown blanket. Light came from tall, thin lamps. The dirt floor was covered by black tiling that was neither plastic nor metal; it stretched across the entire room and even went up the walls, stopping at about waist-level. (Everything above that was rock.) On the far end of the room, the door was open to a small bathroom.

Ever since Bruce had first seen Paula, he'd been sure that he recognized either her or her name. It turned out to be both. He'd forgotten all about his old fascinations with the Del Rios--but seeing her had made him remember it all, including his crush on her. They were about the same age, and he'd been a teenager when he'd first read about them. He could still see the pictures of her that had been in the magazine: a full-color one of her in a blue bikini, by their private pool, an artsy, black-and-white one of her in tight slacks and a long jacket, surrounded by colonial architecture and falling snow. There had been quotes from her talking about the intricacy of the human mind, and how she wanted to be a psychologist. Now, her long, wavy black hair was splayed against a white pillow, and though the blanket covered most of her, he could see the top of her v-neck sweater and the bottom of her jeans, both of which were black. God help him, she looked even better than she did back then.

Paula's eyes finally fluttered open, and she used her elbows to push herself to a half-sitting position. Though she looked disoriented (she'd been exposed to the muscle-relaxant gas that AIM had let loose), there was dignity and class in her every movement and expression. Upon seeing Bruce, her eyes widened.

"You're alive!?"

"Well, I'm--"

"God, that was--are you okay?"

It was then that Bruce realized that he was shaking. He was so used to it, by now--post-Hulk adrenaline took some time to wear off--that he hadn't even noticed. He sat in a rolling chair, wearing rimless glasses, fresh bluejeans, a white-t-shirt that was tucked in, and no shoes or socks. Bruce's skin was even paler than usual, and his eyes were bloodshot. His hair (which seemed lighter brown, in the fluorescent glare) was matted down with sweat. He looked like he was going through withdrawal or the end-stages of some horrible disease. But there was no trace of panic in him; he wore his usual calm expression and used his usual flat tone of voice.

Paula looked at the bruises on her arms. A few seconds ago, she'd remembered all of it, but now, she wasn't so sure. "Um…what exactly happened?"

"We were sitting in the diner, talking about your brother, I told you to go hide in the bathroom--"

"Hey, that's right. Why did you…?"

"Because AIM showed up."

"I remember! I rem--I peeked out the door and saw you get blown away by those guys with energy-guns!"

"Not quite that easy to kill me," Bruce said, with a note of regret in his voice.

"So you, uh, you changed into…him?"

"Yes. After I--after he took out AIM's soldiers, they sent some mechs after him. Pretty much everything was leveled during the fight, which is how you got the bruises. The diner collapsed."

"Geez. I remember feeling really weird when I opened the door, there was all that blue gas."

"It's muscle-relaxant. That's why you've been out for so long."

"I have? What time is it?" She looked at her watch, and then looked around. "For that matter, where are we?"

"We're still in Nevada." After Bruce acquired his condition, he realized that he needed a private facility to study it in--also, he needed a place where the Hulk could hide out, after a battle. Bruce had gotten sick and tired of waking up a hundred miles from anywhere wearing nothing but shredded jeans. So, he'd set up several lairs like this in the southwest, they were fully-stocked with everything he needed. (Including equipment to make new pairs of glasses for himself; he'd been forced to teach himself how to do that, since he always lost them when he Hulked out.)

Paula examined the high-tech (if a bit outdated and jury-rigged) contents of the room, including four wedge-shaped generators that were near the cot…they all had digital readouts. One said "active", one said "recharging", the other two said "sleep mode". "Where'd you get all this stuff?"

"I borrowed some of it from my old employers," he admitted. "After the bomb, when I was still working for the military, I smuggled out components all the time."

"Ahh."

"They forced me to work on mass-murder technology that ended up making me a monster--the way I see it, the least they can do is let me have some equipment that might help me find a cure. The rest, I bought with the blood-money."

"Blood-money?"

"What they paid me for the gamma bomb project, and what they paid me to keep quiet about the fact that the Hulk was a product of it--this was before they knew the truth, obviously. I laundered most of it into numbered accounts, before I was outed…I hoped I could keep my condition secret, but in case I couldn't, I wanted to have some emergency funds to tap into. But I hate that money, and I don't use it unless--"

Bruce realized that he was babbling, and he quickly closed his mouth. What was wrong with him? He'd never been a talkative person, and he (rightfully) felt intimidated by a confident, successful, admittedly attractive woman like Paula. Maybe it was because he never got to talk to anyone about this kind of stuff, maybe it was because he'd had a crush on her, long ago. But he needed to shut up, as he'd told her too much already--he didn't want to drag her into his nightmare by giving her information that others would kill for.

Paula fully sat up, swinging her legs over the cot. She pulled the blanket off. For the first time, she noticed what was on the various screens in the room. Some of them showed DNA, others showed electronic readouts that represented brainwaves and adrenaline and blood-pressure and gamma radiation levels. One was a top-down map of the cave, which, she guessed, was part of a security-system. But the most striking images came from a cluster of laptops that were sitting on one of the folding tables. One showed satellite imagery of some kind of explosion, another showed grainy video of Bruce being thrown forward, with a huge green wave of energy coming up behind him. The final one was mostly black, it was some kind of scanner footage…you could see Bruce's heat-signature, the latent warmth found on the desert floor, and a flurry of green dots that had to represent gamma radiation. It was all playing in an endless loop.

Bruce had joined her in looking at it. He watched arguably the worst moment of his life over and over, from different angles and in different ways. (The satellite data was from a Latverian satellite that the US hadn't known about, at the time. Bruce had only gotten ahold of it recently.) Though Paula had a strong stomach--while doing psych interviews for law-enforcement organizations, she'd survived listening to the darkest desires of serial killers and child-molestors--she couldn't force herself to look at that combination of pictures for more than a few seconds. It was just too painful and cruel; like making someone watch the death of a loved one repeatedly. She realized that it had been playing the entire time that they'd been talking…how could he have sounded so composed, knowing what was on the screens just a few feet away from him? Now, he was eerily still, staring.

"Bruce?"

He said nothing.

"Bruce, are you okay?"

His eyes remained fixed to the screens.

"Bruce, come on…"

"I'm fine. I'm just thinking."

She didn't entirely buy this, as he hadn't bothered to stop looking at the birth of the Hulk.

Finally, he swiveled his chair around and met her gaze. "Okay. We need to get some things straight."

"What do you mean?"

"First off--if what happened at the diner made you change your mind about having me help your brother, I'll understand completely. I'm not a safe person to be around."

Politely but firmly, she said, "Look, my brother's trying to turn himself into something that isn't human…you're kind of an expert on that, and you're the only expert that I can think of that isn't in jail or insane or a superhero that's living in some big giant headquarters that isn't exactly listed in the phone book. You said you'd help, and I'm holding you to it. I really couldn't care less about what happens to me, so don't even think of backing out."

"Okay. In that case, we need to figure out an alibi for you."

Paula almost asked him what he was talking about, but then, she realized: people might have seen them together, in the diner. He was a fugitive being hunted by the military. They'd probably found her rental car (assuming it hadn't been destroyed) and were wondering where she'd gone to. If they thought she knew him, who knew what they'd do to find out more? But at this point, that was a minor concern, compared to what was going on with her brother. She had to keep her priorities straight.

"Well, I actually did take vacation time to go looking for you, so I can say that I was in the diner because I'm sightseeing on a road-trip."

"That sounds good. Since we'll have to make up the rest, let's stick to something simple. You were in the restroom when AIM came in, you crawled out through the window--was there a window in there?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, you crawled out through the window--no, wait, we need to explain the bruises. Forget everything I just said. You hid in the bathroom, you were trapped under the wreckage, and when you got out from under it, you saw these big robots stomping around and shooting things. Obviously, you ran off. You were pretty shook up by what happened, and you've been wandering around in a daze ever since. Maybe you hid in a cave to get out of the rain. You haven't called for help because your cell phone can't get any reception out here."

"It actually can," she said. "If you're wondering."

"Good. Eventually, you get it to work, and you call the cops and ask them to pick you up."

"What if someone says that they saw us sitting together?"

"They won't. The waitress was back in the kitchen when you came in, and the people that were eating there are all dead." He reached for a channel-changer and turned on a newschannel (she assumed he was pirating a satellite-feed), which showed the ruins of the diner (including, unfortunately, the bombed-out remains of her rental car) and the surrounding buildings. Pictures of the victims--taken in happier times--were being shown in the corner of the screen.

Paula tried not to feel too good about that, even though it lessened the chance that she'd be held as a material witness for an indefinite period.

"Keep in mind that there are some things you don't know. You don't know who lived and who died, because you haven't been near a TV. You don't know that the blue gas was muscle-relaxant, because you didn't talk to me."

"Do I know that it was AIM?"

"Would you have recognized them if I hadn't told you?"

"No. I mean, I guess I've seen them on the news, but…"

"Then no, you don't."

"What if they ask if I saw you in the diner?"

"You probably shouldn't lie about that. Just say that you saw some guy sitting in the corner, and you didn't really get a good look at him."

"Right. So, what are you gonna do while I do all that?"

"After I drop you off, I'm headed for San Francisco. Just give me your brother's address. They'll probably question you a little, but it shouldn't be anything too serious--once you're done, you can meet me there."

"What if you get there, and he's already turned himself into…"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." After a pause, he added, "Biologically, I might be able to change him back. But if he doesn't want to be human, there's nothing I can do about that."

"Look, I don't think he's thinking straight--but I can handle that part. You do your part, and I'll do mine." She sighed. "How are you getting there? Do you need a vehicle?" "No, I have a truck parked in the next room."

"Was that how we got out here?"

"The Hulk brought you here, from what I can remember."

"I was never sure about--I mean, can you remember what he does, and vice-versa?"

"Kind of. It's a little foggy, but we get the gist of it."

Bruce walked over to a large cardboard box that was full of wadded-up clothes. He pulled out a red-and-black flannel shirt, which he wore as a jacket, and a green John Deere baseball cap with a yellow tractor on it. He briefly tried on a pair of wafer-thin plastic sunglasses over his regular glasses, too. Even though she'd seen him on TV, years ago--it had been a picture of him in a white labcoat, with a pipe that she suspected was a prop--she never would've recognized him. Paula stood up (discovering, in the process, that she was at least a head taller than him) and reached for her long blue coat, which had been laid out on a table.

He grabbed his black backpack. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"I'm parked right out there."

"You may want to get some shoes and socks, first."

"…that's probably a good idea."

While he put some on, she walked over to the wall and experimentally felt the rock. She made a face and rubbed her fingers together. "What's this stuff on the wall?"

"Chemical residue. It makes the place scanner- and satellite-proof. As far as anyone can tell, except for the part of the cave that's visible from the outside, this is all solid rock."

"You've got everything figured out."

His eyes said "Far from it", but his mouth said nothing.

"Where exactly are you dropping me off? I mean, I couldn't have walked that far from the diner. Is it even safe for you to go near there?"

"Not really, but we'll be careful. I'll drop you off within ten miles--on one of the major highways, near a marker, so you can tell them exactly where you are."

She nodded. "If they ask too many questions, I can just fake post-traumatic stress disorder. I mean, a building really did fall on me, so I don't entirely have to fake it."

As they left, he hit a switch on the wall--all of the screens in the room said "saving" and blinked out. The lights shut off. They entered the garage, which, she found, was pretty normal-looking, though it was narrow, and there was no visible way out. She saw a grey pickup that looked past its prime. After they climbed in, he said, "Standard exit", and Paula felt a bump. Looking out the window, she saw that the sides of the tires were turning to face the ground, just like that car from Back to the Future. Hover-energy made the flimsy seat-cushioning vibrate.

"I may have borrowed some components from SHIELD, too," he said. "If you're trying to hide, you don't want to be leaving a lot of tracks in and out."

Then, the sheer rock wall in front of them divided in half, they entered the normal-looking part of the cave, and they shot out into the storm.