The General executed a surprisingly graceful pirouette and headed for the top of the table. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have singlehandedly created the finest set of international contacts the world will ever know. When the U.N. did not allow me to join their group of pompous, pretentious, egocentric hedonists, I did not pout. I did not play the lout. I faked them out!” As he spoke, the General moved back and forth along the lengths of a wall hanging, which pictured him as a bloody Roman emperor. Then he stabbed his finger into the air like a television evangelist. “I made my own! And that, like I said, is you.”
“My secret army is the best that money can buy. The German was a man who never got over the Reich. The Russian was the saltiest seadog I’ve ever seen. The Greek was profane but the sharpest pilot ever to come out of Vietnam. And all of them have been stymied by a twenty-year-old girl!”
The General spat the final word like he was mentioning a multi-legged, greasy insect. He turned then to the black man in the plastic booth. “But I will show her, I will know her, I shall mow her down!” he shouted, moving like a boxer on the verge of retirement. “What I will do to that filly—you won’t recognize her, Wittenborn!”
He turned back to his assembled crew. “She will be here soon. I will not have it any other way. You shall see to it. I will no longer hold you back. You, the Oriental; you, the Englishman; you, the Spaniard; you, my fellow countrymen, put your own plans into effect. She is close by. The final Greek report substantiated that. She will be here by tonight. See to it.”
The men seated around the table moved back and got up. The General walked over to the clear box where the old doctor stood on the last legs of his hope. His expression mimicked defiance, but the cracks in its foundation were showing.
“Soon, Wittenborn, soon,” the General sneered, “I will get what I want from you. I will know the secret of the gamma treatment. I will see to it that you have no choice but to tell me.” He moved his hands in a crude outline of the female form. Then twisted the image into a pulp by curling his fingers into fists and smacking them together. The General was feeling better. The servants heard his laughter throughout the mansion.
The sun. The heat. The mud. The rocks. The forest. The guilt. The guilt—the guilt was like a weight crushing his head. It was a steam press, pushing down and down until his brow felt starched. Bruce Banner awoke ashamed from his living purgatory. He did not know why, but he felt depressed to the point of committing suicide.
His eyes opened. He saw treetops with the sun winking behind their swaying branches. He heard the leaves rustle, the far cry of wild animals, and what sounded like paper being crumpled. He felt a hard, pulpy thing on the back of his neck and a yielding bed of dirt underneath. Nothing was new. He had been gone and now he was back. The only thing left to wonder about was when he would be going again.
“Bruce?” said a hesitant, gentle voice, the lush voice of an understanding woman. Banner did not recognize it.
“Yes?” he replied to the sky.
“Are you all right?”
Words came back to him. It would be all right, he had promised. He had said it twice. And then . . . and then . . . the nightmare descended again. Banner rose to his elbows. He looked at Rosanne. She was different, somehow. Her clothes had not changed. They looked comfortable, the way they did after you had gone through a lot with them. How long had it been? A day? Two? And her face was no worse for wear. There were no bruises or cuts that he could see.
Banner realized then what had changed about her. Her expression was different. Initially, she had looked at him like a woman willing to become a lovesick girl. She had wanted to depend on him, and her face had held anticipation, affection, and hope. She had been asking him not to fail her. But he had, purposely, because no one could depend on him. He was, by nature of his very schizophrenic being, incapable of being trustworthy. Whenever he felt strongly enough about anything, a green thing handled the mechanics.
Now Rosanne’s expression told him other things. She knew; she sympathized; but she . . . she . . . didn’t like him. No, not like. Friendship had nothing to do with it. She didn’t know him. And she didn’t trust him.
“Yes, I’m all right,” he finally said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She looked at the ground like a child whose secret stash of dirty books had been discovered. She knew something he didn’t know, and she didn’t want to shame him—or pity him.
Banner was filled with a sudden self-loathing. He could no longer blame the Hulk for everything. He had accepted the monster as part of himself—as part of everyone. But he still felt angry at the fate that had exiled him to this horrible half-life. Hurriedly, he rose and stepped away, then stared uncomprehendingly over at the remains of the four jet copters. More had happened than he had imagined.
“Okay,” he said as briskly as he could. “What went on?”
Rosanne’s head rose, and the impersonal expression was still on her face.
“You honestly don’t know?”
Banner spun around. “Let me give you the facts of my life,” he said with more relief than passion. “My name is really Dr. Bruce Banner. I wasn’t always the way I am now. But my emotions once got the better of my knowledge.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but the doctor quickly held up his hand. “That is all I’m going to say about it. I never want something like this to happen to anybody else—ever. I think I’d die before I’d talk about how this happened to me. But, then, again,” he added bitterly, “I’m not even sure I can die. Maybe even in that split second before the end, he’d come roaring up and fight forever.”
“He?” she interjected.
“He, me—what difference does it make?”
“Maybe a lot, Bruce.” Rosanne rose and stood before him. “He is a part of you, however it happened, and a part of you must be able to control him.”
“How? How?” Banner yelled at her, then quickly calmed himself down. “I’m certainly not aware of it,” he continued, weakly grinning. “You think I secretly like fighting, destruction, killing?”
“He doesn’t want to fight or destroy, and he certainly doesn’t want to kill. He protected me, Bruce. He saved your life.”
“Well, be sure to thank him for me when you see him again!”
Rosanne slapped him across the face.
Bruce’s expression rapidly changed from shock to awe to tired rationality.
“You sure like to take chances, lady,” he said.
Now it was the girl’s turn to grin. “I really don’t think you two are that much different. I think you’d do what he does if you could. And I think he’s trying to do what you would if he could only fully understand. He’s just . . . childlike, full of a curiosity and vitality.”
“Vitality? Ha! Power, ma’am, raw and unadulterated. And the name’s the Hulk—the Incredible, Unbelievable, Unwanted, Unenviable Hulk.”
“Hulk?” she mused, remembering the beast’s only utterance. “Yes. Yes, the Hulk. That’s what he said.”
Banner’s body suddenly snapped completely erect. His eyes grew wide and he gripped her shoulders.
“He talked?” he said incredulously. “He actually said something? Rosanne, quickly, you must tell me absolutely everything that happened—every detail, now!”
More information. More facts fitted away in the special section of his memory tagged with the green label. He had conversed. He had shown an interest in discovery. He had displayed a rudimentary cunning based on previous experience. And he did not purposely kill. He just didn’t know his own strength. The snake had attacked first. Two pilots had run into the jungle before the boulder had dropped on their copters. He would never know whether he had meant the other two to crash. He could understand it if he had but he hoped he hadn’t.
“I could be,” Banner said, sitting crosslegged on the ground opposite Rosanne. “It could be that essentially the Hulk is a child—I mean, legitimately and actually. You said his skin was smooth?”
; The girl nodded, fascinated.
“Well, that could mean he’s capable of . . . of . . . growing up.” Banner was stunned at the very thought of it for a moment. “A freak of nature. Capable of being nurtured by the sun’s rays, like a plant, but, then, again, not like a plant at all. Even if he only came out at night once a month, maybe my body holds the vitamin D in abeyance for him. And maybe, just maybe, he can mature.” Bruce locked his eyes with hers.
“Think of it!” he cried. “Two connected, but separate, rational personalities: one for thought, one for action. My consciousness could store strategies: his could implement them. It could be happening in a small way now.”
“It has to be,” Rosanne stressed. “He comes from you, in all concepts of the word. Something moves him. And both your heads are too small to hold two brains.”
Her words suddenly swept Banner down another stream of thought, “Yes, but what does happen inside? Even I know how I change externally, but what happens to my organs, my muscles, my bones? That’s the key. The heart and brain: How do they change? And into what? Does it strengthen or weaken me, the Banner body. Is there any way I can keep the Hulk awake after fighting? Can I maintain the activity without the violence?” As quickly as he began his tirade, Banner fell back, defeated.
“Oh, damn. How can I ever know?” he wailed. “How can I ever know?”
“Bruce,” Rosanne said, holding his shoulders, “I . . . feel for the Hulk. He saved my life. You saved my life, several times. I feel for both . . . I mean, all of you. I can help. I will help, if you’ll let me.”
Banner looked her straight in the eye, both reluctant and desperate. “I want help, Rosanne. I need help. But I can’t accept it. Don’t you understand? I can never know him. I am the Hulk, but I will never know what it’s like to be him. All I know is that everytime he lives, I die—not figuratively, literally. I die. I can’t ask anyone to share that Curse.”
Rosanne Wittenborn leaned back, placing her hands behind her, and she stretched her legs out. Her pose was enticing and maternal at the same time.
“You don’t have to ask,” she said. “You don’t have a choice. You won’t be able to get rid of me. You can beg, you can cry, you can even threaten. But I won’t go. And you won’t get angry at me because you can’t afford to.”
Banner held back his immediate reply. Answers like “It won’t work” or “It’s too risky” were choked off. He could no longer make the decision himself. Here was someone special. Most people, had they known about him, would have fled. Many others would offer help but be incapable of giving it. Rosanne, however, was ready and able to try.
But they were both many miles from home. Their sympathy for one another might work out here, in an African jungle, where their lives were at stake, but what would happen in the cold light of civilization? Banner drained his head of all such thoughts. She had made her decision and she was right. He was in no position to dispute it.
“Thank you,” was all he said.
She came into his arms as naturally as a salmon swimming upstream. He didn’t have to read her mind. She saw him as both cripple and giant, as a pitiful child and a masterful king, brilliant and naïve at the same time.
She loved him as a woman, as a girl, as a friend, as a partner, as a mother, as a lover. And God help him, something inside him loved her, also.
Eight
“Africa,” said Agent Garris, “11,673,000 square miles. North to south, that’s 5,000 miles. East to west, 4,700 miles. Chief mountain ranges: the Ahaggar, Atlas, Drakensberg, Ruwenzorki . . .”
“That’s Ruwenzori,” corrected Agent Curtiss, yawning elaborately.
“Thanks,” said Agent Garris, wiping off his broad forehead for the fifth time. “Ruwenzori and the Tibesti. Chief rivers: Congo, Limpopo, Niger, Nile, Orange, and Zambezi. Largest deserts: Kalahari Namib, and, of course, the Sahara. Lots of movies shot there. Hey, did you see Death on the Nile?”
“Naw,” said Curtiss. “I liked Albert Finney too much as Poirot.”
“Yeah, yeah, well.”
The two sat side by side in a Jeep that bounced across the Central African Republic. Curtiss was nearing the last leg of his journey, so he was going through his final briefing and armament fitting. He didn’t know which he dreaded most, but when Garris resumed his droning, he was pretty sure it was the briefing.
“Let’s see, now. This is the second largest continent in the world.”
“What’s the first?” Curtiss asked, knowing full well it was Eurasia.
Garris lost his place in the memorized speech. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to know is all.”
“Well, you would do better to keep your mind on the mission at hand,” Garris said hotly. “Now, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, the different life-styles. There’s the farm life, the desert life, the tribal life, and the city life. The chief products come from agriculture: bananas, cotton, peanuts—that sort of thing. Uh, mining produces the likes of diamonds, gold, uranium, lead—all that stuff. And manufacturing basically lies around cement, chemicals, and textiles.”
“Fascinating,” commented Curtiss dryly.
“It might do you good to know this,” replied Curtiss in a huff.
“Mitch,” said Curtiss in exasperation, “I do know this stuff. I also know Africa’s chief lakes, biggest waterfalls, its highest and lowest elevations, its history, its heritage, every country, every nationality, and I’m fluent in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages, while having a fine grasp of the Macro-Sudanic and Click tongues. You want to talk about the weather in Swahili?”
“There’s no need to get abusive,” Garris retorted quietly. “There’s nothing wrong with a little repetition.”
The two were nearing their destination, so Curtiss decided not to carry his half of the conversation to its natural conclusion. The Jeep wound its way through the narrow but straight streets, moving by one- and two-story dwellings that looked like giant warts with doors and windows. Drawing up beside one such edifice, Curtiss braked the vehicle, switched the key, and hopped out. Without turning to see if Garris followed, he strode in through the door.
A remarkably cool looking little man, wearing nothing more than khaki shorts, greeted him affably.
“Ah, Mr. Curtiss?” He did not wait for an answer. “Please go through that door.” He pointed to a partition behind a black counter. Curtiss noticed it had a doorknob, but no keyhole or doorjambs. As he approached, it swung open automatically, exposing a bright white room about the size of an elevator. He turned back to see the little man and Garris standing together watching him.
“Thanks,” he said. The little man smiled and waved. Garris looked vacuous and mopped his brow.
The door closed behind him smoothly as he moved into the room. As soon as it had shut soundly, the room turned a shade of deep red, and a disembodied feminine voice asked him to take off his clothes. He did so immediately and without question. The female voice thanked him and explained that he was about to take a sterility bath. As she spoke a slab started growing out of the wall. The voice recommended he lay down. He did. Then, with humor, the voice suggested that he wave his body hair good-bye.
The bath began. Two minutes later the opposite wall opened by sliding downward. On the other side was a fully outfitted laboratory staffed by seven scientists—two female, five male. Curtiss wondered, as he stood there naked, which one of the women had given him the instructions. One man, his dark skin setting off his bright white lab coat, stood several yards in front of him with his hands in his pockets.
“Hello, Mr. Curtiss. Would you please step this way?” The man turned and led the agent over to a leather-covered examining table. “Please,” said the pleasant fellow, “lie down.” As Curtiss did so, the area flew into activity. Equipment was switched on, he was secured to the table by two wide straps, and a large operating light was pulled into position above him.
“I’m Dr. Merrick,” said the black man, whose f
ace was being covered with a surgical mask while his hands were encased in rubber gloves by the two female scientists. One of them, an attractive brunette, wheeled over a bureau full of sharp scalpels. Then she began to wash her hands. “Dr. Porter will assist me,” Merrick explained, motioning to the scrubbing woman. She finished washing and two men helped her put her gloves on.
“You’d probably like to know that our work will not be permanent. We will simply follow the instructions from your Washington superiors. I am also told that you are familiar with the weapons we will be installing.”
Curtiss nodded.
“Good,” said Merrick. “Let’s begin. Anesthesia.”
Garris’s face was no longer vacuous. The irritating man who’d insisted on giving Curtiss such a thorough briefing had revealed himself to be, in actuality, an expert in armaments and scientific advances. And he didn’t have all those letters behind his name for nothing.
Now Curtiss sat in Garris’s plainly decorated office, which was lined with books and heat-resistant microfilm cassettes, and Garris sat behind his worn oak desk. Curtiss was dressed in a loose white cotton shirt and faded jeans. Garris wore a lab coat and white gloves—a terry-cloth headband held his straight, sandy hair back from his brow. A piece of tracing paper lay on the desk, and on its surface were a number of very tiny instruments.
“Besides your ample physical and self-defensive abilities,” he was saying, “you have four pieces of equipment to call on. First, under your left forefinger fingernail.” Garris caught a flesh-colored sliver of plastic in between his tweezers and held it up to Curtiss’s eyes. “All you have to do is depress the fingernail in spurts of two or three times, and it will be ready. Press the edge of the nail against a neck, and enough poison will be pumped into the body to rupture every organ. But you must discharge it once it’s set, or else you’ll probably wind up killing yourself over an itch or mosquito bite.
Marvel Novel Series 03 - The Incredible Hulk - Cry Of The Beast Page 9
