THE INCREDIBLE HULK
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THE INCREDIBLE HULK
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CHAPTER ONE
In Dr. Bruce Banner's estimation, the concept of survival had been overly-romanticized, in recent years. It always grated on him--within a novel or film, some character would proudly describe themselves as a survivor. The mere act of surviving was treated as an ideal; the most noble thing to do was to overcome some obstacle, be it a typical blockbuster threat or a movie-of-the-week, socially-relevant danger. Maybe this desire to give it an epic flair came from some Darwinian sense of pride. But the fact was that survival itself was morally ambiguous: yes, it could be good, but it could just as easily be bad. Dictators survived. Corporate criminals stole tens of millions and walked away, essentially unscathed. If you could endure, all it meant was that you were capable of more viciousness and paranoia than whoever you were up against--and though society felt the need to play it up as a glorious triumph of the human spirit, survival was an ugly, painful thing. The experience left behind individuals that were hardened and forged, equipped to operate in life-or-death circumstances, but utterly lost in the everyday universe…
Ruin was blossoming in San Francisco. Several dozen blocks had been razed to the ground; only dirt and concrete foundations remained, while the wreckage was mysteriously absent. The sidewalks and streets led to holes and now-empty lots. A cloudy membrane of dust strangled the sky, exchanging dimming blue for a greyish-tan that glittered with glass and metal particles. That dust also blocked the rest of the city from view…if you were standing in this area, you might as well have been in the middle of a thousand-mile-wide wasteland. Even the urban sounds couldn't be heard, as the air was still crackling with noisy energy. There were no crowds, no buildings, no vehicles, no sun. Though a pile of high-tech equipment was located where an R&D facility had once been, the only thing actually left standing was Bruce. He couldn't help but think about the cartoon characters that would have a black stormcloud perpetually hovering over their heads--another force of nature, entropy, followed him in the exact same way.
Bruce hated to admit it, but this impromptu terraforming had made him feel much more comfortable. He was alone, and he preferred the more desolate parts of the southwest, anyway. Bruce's purple button-down shirt and dark bluejeans were creatively smeared with dirt, like God had gone on a manic fingerpainting spree. His brown hair had gotten even messier. (If such a thing were possible.) He'd cleaned off his rimless glasses, and now, he was just standing stiffly, thinking. Being in the middle of a lot of destruction wasn't anything new for him. But this time, he hadn't been the one to cause it, and that was a nice change of pace.
Only seconds ago, a towering, cylindrical energy-grid had shot down from the sky, somehow weakened gravity, and expanded like a concentric circle, quickly shoving everything (aside from advanced technology and his superhuman self) out of the area. Bruce had been in a building at the time--since he was unharmed, he hoped that the bystanders were, as well. In his case, the walls, ceiling, and floor of Eric Del Rio's lab had crumbled and flown by, while the grid just passed through the scientific equipment. He'd been afraid that one of the walls would blindside him and trigger the Hulk (he was right in the path of the destruction), but they were practically powder by the time he came in contact with them.
One moment, Eric's building was there--the next, it was gone. Bruce and the equipment had been left hovering over the suddenly-exposed basement. Then, they'd fallen very slowly to the ground, landing lightly. Antigrav, had to be. Now on the other side of this steamrolling force, he'd seen the sand-textured remains of other buildings being pushed by the grid, as well as windblown people that were flattened against it, alive but terrified. It had all vanished into the debris-fog. Then, the grid's radius had retracted, gathering up the tech as it went. The man responsible for all this was absent, for the moment…but Bruce knew he'd be returning.
A lopsided-sounding siren cut through the air, and a black-and-white police car rocketed out of the earth-tinged haze. It looked surprisingly modern, sporty, and low-slung. But it had seen better days. While on a routine patrol, the two cops inside had been overwhelmed by what looked like a tidal wave of everything imaginable. Desks, people, vehicles of various kinds, chunks of buildings, streetlights, and even toilets and other plumbing-fixtures that were trailing spiraling loops of water. There was no way to dodge it, as the grid that was pushing all that was at least ten blocks wide. The impact had been surprisingly blunt--it set the airbags off, but it hadn't crippled the car. It moved them dozens of feet in under a second. Then, the grid had vanished, and the contents of the tidal wave had bumped onto the ground softly. Some paramedics that had also been caught up in it were already checking out the injured, so the two cops decided to see what was on the other side of the wall of dust.
Upon taking note of their arrival, Bruce sighed--that complicated things. He'd now have to waste precious minutes explaining the situation. For obvious reasons, he always tried to avoid cops and hide his true identity from them…but in this situation, there was no place to hide, and they could screw things up if they weren't fully-informed, anyway. The car ignored the street pattern; its occupants simply noticed Bruce and then made a beeline for him, since there wasn't anything in the way. He initially assumed that they were just coming to see if he was okay, but then he remembered that he was standing by a bunch of high-tech devices, he was the only person that hadn't been affected by the grid, and he wasn't panicking like a bystander would. It did look a bit suspicious…
The car side-skidded to a halt about ten feet away from him. He didn't move. The driver's side door was facing him, and the cops both exited from the other one, taking up firing positions behind the car. They aimed at him. One was a lean black man that didn't look over twenty-one, the other one was a gorgeous, dark-blonde Hispanic woman that didn't seem stereotypically-tomboyish enough to be a police officer. Both wore dark blue pants with a lighter blue button-down shirt.
"HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!!"
"I'm not--"
"PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!!"
Bruce said nothing. They kept their weapons trained on him. Then, "Are the two of you about done?"
"You think we're kidding around, here? You think this is a joke?! Get down on your knees, you moron!" The woman tightened her grip on her gun. They'd heard reports that some kind of rogue superhuman was behind this, and this skinny, short guy didn't look like one--to her eyes, he was just another dime-a-dozen loser--but that didn't necessarily mean anything. They didn't all wear costumes or look like aliens.
Keeping his hands in plain sight, Bruce said, "Do you want to know what's going on, or do you want to keep screaming at me? I'm Dr. Bruce Banner."
The guy laughed (they dealt with a ton of crackpots), but he couldn't stop himself from taking a closer look. His eyes narrowed and then went wide. "Oh my god…"
"If it makes you feel better, you can point those things at me all you want--but I wouldn't recommend shooting. You already have one class-nine superhuman on the loose, and I don't think you want the Hulk running around, too."
The woman refused to relax her posture, and, reluctantly allowing herself to take her eyes off the possible perp for two seconds, she tossed an "Are you serious?" look to her partner. "Don't tell me you're buying this crap!"
"I saw him on TV, years ago--that's him!"
"Listen carefully: you need to notify your superiors and tell them to notify SHIELD, because we have someone who just turned himself into something that isn't human."
"Um…"
"He has--pay attention, this is important--he has the ability to rewrite his DNA and molecular structure into anything conceivable. I'm talking about any kind of substance, whether it's organic or not. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, he just wants to build a device that will enable him to leave this dimension…he's out scavenging for more technology as we speak. The best thing to do is stay out of his way and let me figure out a way to deal with it."
They just stood there looking shocked and out of their depth. Then, a transmission burst over the handheld radios that were currently clipped near their shoulders. Bruce made out the words "clay creature", "break-in", and the name of a local tech corporation.
"That's him," Bruce said.
"Look, even if this is true, we have to take you into custody," the woman replied.
"For your own safety, you need to keep clear of me."
She cursed under her breath, and then told her partner to call it in. He lowered his weapon to do so, while she kept hers pointed right at Bruce. After about a half-minute of hushed conversation, the cop reached into the glovebox and pulled out a cell phone.
"Our boss wants to talk to you. Catch."
Bruce didn't, of course. After several clumsy attempts to keep it from hitting the ground, it finally did, but it didn't break. He managed to look very dignified as he picked it up and beeped it on.
"This is Lieutenant Shreckson--am I speaking to Bruce Banner?"
"Dr. Bruce Banner, yes." Bruce kept one eye on the two cops, who didn't look happy. The man was telling the woman something, and she wasn't taking it well--though he wasn't much of a lipreader, Bruce made out "He just told me."
"Dr. Banner, we're hoping we can resolve this, uh, this situation without any complications."
"I feel the exact same way."
"How are you connected to this superhuman? Who is it, for that matter?"
"It doesn't really matter," Bruce lied. He knew that Paula wanted her brother's identity kept secret. "The bottom line is that I was trying to help make him human, again."
"I see. Can you tell me about the events that led up to him destroying what he did?"
"He did it to get technology. You were told about how he wants to leave this dimension, right?"
"Yeah."
"Just making sure."
"So, you think you can cure him?"
"Maybe, but there's no way to tell how long it'd take--and if he doesn't want me to, it's not like I can force him."
"Can he be reasoned with?"
"I don't think he's insane, if that's what you're asking…but there's no telling how what he did to himself might have altered his mind, biologically speaking. His mental state could be extremely complex. Look, just give me some time, and I'll come up with something."
Bruce was now getting the gist of the other conversation, as well--the uniformed officers were discussing why no other cops had arrived to investigate this incident. Some higher-ups had ordered that the entire area be sealed off; nobody in or out. It wasn't hard for Bruce to figure out what that meant.
"He turned himself into something that isn't human, he's gonna go to some other dimension, and he isn't insane? Um, right."
The loud aftershock-ripples were now gone. All three of them heard the sound of helicopters, and looked up. The silhouettes of high-tech, Apache-style choppers could be seen through the dust; they were loaded down with missiles. They also heard the sonic booms of fighter jets. Multiple sirens roared in the distance.
"What are you--oh, don't even think about it. I saw the technology he used to turn himself into what he is now, so I have a pretty good idea of what his genetic capabilities are…trust me, you do not want to start a fight with him. I don't care what the military is telling you."
"How did you--"
"Listen to me: let him take what he wants. It's just property, and it's probably insured, anyway. I'm pretty sure he's building a portal, so even if I can't convince him to stay, he'll leave the tech behind when he goes, they could get it back within a few hours. It isn't worth getting your officers killed over. I know you want to make him pay for what he did to this neighborhood, but, we need to figure out a plan before we do anything. If you just start attacking him, cops and soldiers and bystanders are--"
Screams and a chorus of gunfire exploded over both of their personal radios. They heard the code for multiple officers down. The female cop suddenly rounded the car and advanced on Bruce, who took several steps backwards. Her partner looked surprised. "I don't care who you are, you're gonna come with us and tell us everything you know!"
Bruce shook his head, fighting off the adrenaline that was rising in him. "Don't do this, don't throw your life away…"
She never got the chance--out of nowhere, an electromagnetic pulse ripped through San Francisco. Only instead of stopping technology dead, it scrambled and accelerated it. The police car's siren turned back on and the windows went up and down. Every horn and alarm in the city went off. White noise shot through their radios and the cell phone. Bruce initially thought that the military had done it (to try to stop Eric), but then, he saw the helicopters spinning out of control. Some crashed and produced ringing explosions, while others were randomly, unwillingly firing off dozens of missiles…missiles that were headed, among other places, straight for the three of them.
THE INCREDIBLE HULK #3:
CULTURE OF EMERGENCY