CHAPTER THREE

It was like claustrophobia, but worse: people who suffered from that may have felt like the all-encompassing thing stretched forever, but in truth, it could be as thin as a cardboard box or as easily-escaped as a closet. On the other hand, the invisible force that currently pressed on Bruce from all directions spanned many, many miles--and getting out of it would have taken at least half a day. Bruce had never been bothered by tight spaces, but when around people (especially large groups of them), he felt like he was about to cave in from heavy gravity. So, as he ventured through San Francisco during a surprisingly-warm dusk, he wasn't doing that well. There were quite literally millions on all sides of him. He felt trapped and overwhelmed, and he knew he was giving the Hulk far too many chances to come to life. In the middle of nowhere, external stimuli that would trigger the change (otherwise known as human beings) were more easily avoided, and innocent bystanders weren't as commonplace. Careful, self-controlled superheroes could manage battles in urban environments, but the Hulk was neither. A fight in a place like this meant that the body count at least tripled.

To Bruce, the environment around him was alien. There were smiling, sexy people everywhere, with perfect tans and trendy clothes. Everything was warm and bright. The sound of laughter and music kept startling him; he wasn't used to either. Apparently, the mime population of the city (which included both the classic black-and-white model and metal-painted robots) had decided that the overly-serious man with bluejeans, a dark purple button-down shirt (he'd found it in the truck--he figured that his flannel disguise would stand out too much), and a black backpack was the perfect target for their hijinks. As he didn't want to draw attention to himself, he'd been as curt with them as possible, eliciting boos and various condescending noises from onlookers. His usually-messy hair had a bad case of hathead, and he hadn't had time to shave. He seemed to be the shortest adult in every crowd he ended up in. Naturally, he hadn't slept, nor had he showered since Hulking out. God help him, he wasn't forceful enough to hail a cab. (At one point, a group of midriff-baring teenyboppers pounced on the only car that had actually stopped for him.)

As he wasn't sure how long it would take to deal with the Eric Del Rio situation, he'd parked his truck in a long-term garage, and then taken the ferry into the city. Then, he'd promptly gotten lost. Paula had given him directions, but the landmarks she referred to didn't seem to make sense--and the distraction of being around others didn't help. He was used to the more arid, unpopulated areas of the southwest…the Hulk had crisscrossed Nevada and the Four Corners states hundreds of times, and Bruce could find his way by identifying certain plants and soils and rocks, as he knew which regions they were unique to. His first idea had been to find a map in a phonebook at a payphone, but the books had all been stolen. Eventually, he reluctantly forked over eight bucks for a glossy, full-color map of the city, and sought out Eric's lab from there.

After what felt like an eternity of walking, he found it: a landscaped neighborhood filled with upscale small businesses. (They actually had parking lots, as opposed to making you park on the street.) Male, thirtysomething professionals locked up, with college-aged female employees trailing behind them. It was all on a slope. Just to be safe, he checked for anything suspicious--people watching the building, that sort of thing--in case Eric had already been found out. But even if he had, Bruce couldn't think of any reason why they'd put surveillance on the place. So, he dodged automatic sprinkler systems and made his way up a sidewalk parallel to the street. After turning at the lab (which reminded Bruce of a travel agency building), he pulled out the keycard that Paula had given him.

"Hey!"

Bruce stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to see someone calling him from the next building down, on its front sidewalk. To his great relief, it wasn't a cop, nor did they look like any kind of agent. The young woman had typical Californian dark blonde hair and tight-fitting clothing. She shielded her eyes, as the sun was in them.

"You a friend of Eric's?"

"Yeah."

"I haven't seen him in a while…"

"He's on vacation. I'm just feeding his fish."

"He is? I remember that he had his family here a while back."

Bruce sensed that she was testing him, to see if he really knew Eric, or if he was just some random criminal trying to break in. "Everyone but Paula left. I think she's doing something for him, too, so you might see her around."

"Oh, okay." That seemed to satisfy her. It was here that anyone with social skills or not on the run would have crossed the shared lawn and introduced themselves, but Bruce didn't fall in either category, so he just walked up to the door and let himself in. She was left standing there, looking vaguely offended.

The first thing that hit him was the smell: it was what lasers going through prisms smelled like. (Bruce's senses had been exposed to quite a few exotic things, and his memory was good.) He remembered that Paula had said that the cocoon was crystal. After quickly walking through a maze of hallways, he found the lab itself. The crystal was now a volcanic shade of black--strands of glowing, sun-colored liquid would bubble out of it, stick to the surface, slide, and then re-enter it elsewhere. There were arm-sized holes in the floor and the walls and the ceiling, like something had smashed into them. The area closest to it was charred in an outward pattern. Curiously, the power was entirely off, even for the things that one would normally leave on.

Time to get to work. After turning on the lights, Bruce lowered his backpack to the floor and took stock of the equipment in the room, seeing what he had to work with and getting clues in the process. (He saw molecular-field manipulators, but no DNA sequence bonders. There was a plethora of beakers containing advanced amino acids, but the bottles labeled "malleable synthetic plastic" were empty. So, he knew what had been used or might have been used, and what he couldn't have done to himself, as he lacked the supplies or equipment.) Bruce used a screwdriver in his pocketknife to unscrew the computers, and saw that the circuitboards were all fried. He hadn't discovered any notes on paper…a hasty search of possible hiding places didn't those or anything else up, either. The most hopeful lead was a shower-like stall built into the lab's wall. It had multiple heads, but they weren't for water; the holes were covered with some kind of special glass.

After finding some tools, Bruce disconnected and disassembled one of the heads. He took a look at its guts. Then, he stood on his toes and checked out the pipe-like thing it had been attached to. Both were full of unique components. Then, he considered the various ways those components could be used, both individually and together. The control interface was a small digital screen with a keypad, and the keys were labeled: "charge", "timer", "recalibrate", "switch frequency". He looked around for an access panel to the technology that fed into the stall. It was in a nearby cabinet that connected to the wall; a flimsy, wood-colored square blocked the section of the machine that powered whatever the stall did. He identified some of the tech immediately, and some soon thereafter. A very rough theory was forming in his mind.

Having made some headway in that regard, he started rummaging for any kind of portable scanner. A thick visor with a strap on the end tumbled from one of the higher shelves, and Bruce turned it on and looked at the cocoon through it. The good news was that Eric was alive--the bad news was that he wasn't human. It tried, but the visor couldn't identify the properties of either the crystal or the thing that Eric had become. However, the scan did show that the surface was neither too hot nor too cold to touch, and that it wasn't volatile with exotic energy. (So you didn't have to worry about it blowing up or sucking your life out of you if you got too close.) Also, it was very molecularly dense, so simply breaking it open was out of the question. Bruce felt its texture and considered its shape. He set the visor on a counter, aimed it at the crystal, and programmed the visor to beep if anything changed.

It beeped as soon as he turned his back, which was when a blinding white light blinked into existence a few hundred feet above the lab and proceeded to drench a thirty-block area in ivory brilliance.

A hollow column of energy shot down and crashed into the street. It was like a giant, glowing-white grid that had been rolled into a tower. Without warning, the grid expanded its radius--it phased through more advanced technology, while not filtering people or cars or buildings through. Hundreds were slammed into by the huge latticework wall of energy; it effortlessly pushed both them and the wreckage it had created. Gravity was briefly cancelled out, so no people or objects fell, though they were sent flying hundreds of feet away. A halo was being created within San Francisco, it had a ring of destruction around its outer edge, while it left only a few things behind. Vehicles were sent rolling in mid-air. Three-story offices were hit with the power of a tsunami. Some of the more expensive corporate buildings had left high-tech skeletons behind, while having been stripped of their plaster and glass and personnel. One moment, a man was working at a computer, the next, he was floating a few blocks away, surrounded by chunks of his apartment.

After it had covered ten blocks in every direction, the grid retracted. Technology was caught in the net-like wave and dragged to the epicenter. Humans and rubble alike crashed down as the antigrav dimmed. (Broken bones and other serious injuries were common, but, amazingly, no one had died.) Tons of scientific equipment was dumped onto the street where the beam had first made contact. This part of the city was now flat and barren. However, there were two beings left. One was an unfazed Bruce Banner, who hadn't been that surprised when the grid had passed right through him. The other was a seven-foot-tall humanoid, largely featureless, with black eyes, made of a white shade of some kind of clay. With a glance at what his grid had brought him (there were several R&D facilities in the neighborhood, so his take was high-end), things started floating and spinning around, deconstructing and reconstructing into something new.

Bruce had just stood there as the lab building shattered all around him. Then, he'd watched as Eric broke out of his cocoon, and followed him into the street. The equipment in the lab had been caught in the energy-net and gathered with the other tech. Now, the clay figure that had replaced Eric looked at Bruce strangely. Bruce guessed he was wondering why he hadn't been pushed away like everyone else.

After growing a mouth, Eric said, "You aren't like those other things."

"No, I'm not."

"I'm leaving."

"Oh?"

"I found a better dimension. One without any of them."

Bruce considered it and shrugged. "Okay."

"Yes."

"Any chance I can talk you out of it?"

"No."

"Maybe we should wait and talk to Paula."

"What's a 'Paula'?" After looking at what he'd assembled, thus far, he stared off into the distance. His eyes narrowed. "I need an ionic chamber. I'll be right back." He took to the air, and once he'd left the part of San Francisco that he'd cleared out, he was greeted with screams and sirens.

Bruce took off his glasses, polished them with his shirt, and put them back on. This was going to be ugly. He had many talents, but convincing someone that humanity was a good thing wasn't one of them…

The senior agent in the room pointed at one of the screens. "Is that a FEMA satellite?"

"Yes, sir."

"Zoom in on that person that was left behind."

Keys were tapped, and an image became less fuzzy. The junior agent looked shocked. "Is that…?"

"What's the official response from the US?"

"The locals are sending in squad cars. The military is scrambling fighter jets as we speak."

"Have they identified him?"

"As far as I can tell, no. They're just reacting to what happened."

"Good. Activate Hulk contingency 3B."

Continued…