The She-Hulk Diaries

by Acosta, Marta

  I started sorting everything into piles on the dining room table. It became apparent that Claude didn’t have a simple income tax issue. He had a hydra monster of a tax issue. Shulky had had a brutal encounter with Madame Hydra, but even that diabolical mastermind didn’t have the terrifying ability to charge compound interest.

  Tomorrow I’d tell Claude that he needed to get a specialist. I made file folders for his papers so he wouldn’t be charged additional fees for clerical work.

  JANUARY 13

  I keep thinking about Dahlia’s prediction that dangerous cloned organ technology would be used for beauty treatments. Spent the day reading about advances in the field, as well as learning about ReplaceMax complications that go far beyond the usual risks associated with human-to-human transplants. Most of the news is only conjecture, but there are too many reports of organ recipients now on life support.

  Legal bloggers are saying that Quintal, Ulrich, Iverson, Ride, and Cooper (QUIRC) are rumored to be moving against ReplaceMax. QUIRC is described as “an elite boutique firm led by eccentric senior partner E. Charles (Quinty) Quintal III, who defected from the prestigious firm his grandfather founded to establish a more ‘bohemian’ practice. QUIRC specializes in resolving high-profile cases with extremely secretive settlements.”

  I wrote a letter to E. Charles Quintal III, attached my CV, and sent it off.

  JANUARY 16

  VALENTINE’S DAY RESOLUTIONS

  COUNTDOWN: 30 DAYS

  I know that shopping is fun for most women because they can fit in normal clothes and the clothes won’t be ripped to shreds by the end of the month. I went to Bloomie’s, gritted my teeth, and paid crazy prices for five nearly identical black suits that were too big, so that the sleeves and skirts were long enough.

  I took the suits to the Garment District and found the shop that specialized in “breakaway garments.”

  The designer, who wore a tape measure around her neck, looked me up and down. “Most strippers your age look more chewed up at the edges, if you know what I mean. If you’re gonna get implants, tell me so I can leave some give for the plastic.”

  Grit teeth smile. “It’s for a private client who likes me to be stylish.”

  When I gave her the new suits, she tut-tutted, and said, “These are too good to ruin, hon. You don’t want me to cut them up.”

  “Trust me,” I told her. “If they don’t have breakaway releases, they’ll get ripped off my body and ruined anyway.”

  She seemed suspicious, so I bought two of the lovely dresses in her showroom. One was a deep scarlet because I plan to have a Real Date on Valentine’s Day. I was going to leave, but she made me try on the suits and then said, “A couple of tucks here and there and you’ll look classy even while you’re being trashy.”

  Grit teeth smile.

  5:30 P.M.

  As Ruth would say, OMG, AMAZING! I got a call from Quintal, Ulrich, Iverson, Ride, and Cooper. QUIRC wants to meet with me ASAP. So glad I picked up my suit from the cleaners. The repairs to the seams are hardly noticeable.

  Must call Amy to schedule intense interview prep session.

  If things keep going so excellently, I’ll have achieved so much, I can add “Visit Paris” to my list of goals!

  10:15 P.M.

  Excitement is now churning in my guts with nausea. My skin crawls and I feel like I’m going to barf. I want to be judged by what I’ve done, not how well I can impress people on casual acquaintance, which is not at all. Amy said not to worry, that my CV speaks for itself.

  If this fails, I can always take Azzan up on his offer of the international assassin job.

  11:45 P.M.

  I’m doing sit-ups to burn off my anxiety when my aPhone buzzes. I grab it. “Yes?”

  It was the emergency nightline at the Mansion. “Jennifer, we’ve got a situation and everyone else is at the hovercraft derby. Mr. Stark thought She-Hulk could handle it.”

  Because I’m the rubber chicken. “Sure, so long as she doesn’t have to leave the planet, because I’ve got a job interview.”

  “She doesn’t even have to leave the state. Someone’s built a platform in the Hudson, and it’s supporting a giant peashooter, pulling water from the river and firing water spheres at the theater district. The tourists are running scared and wet. Detective Palmieri will meet Shulky at Pier 83.”

  I was going to ask how water could be formed into spheres that would travel that distance, but now was not the time to get technical. “Shulky will be there stat!”

  I pulled off my flannel pajamas and took a breath.

  11:50 P.M.

  Everyone who shifts experiences something different. With me, there is the initial tingle of expectation that runs through my body. I feel it in my fingertips, on my scalp, and down my spine.

  The sensation builds as my body stretches and grows dense with muscle. My skin takes on an intense green hue, and my slight curves swerve into dangerous turns of boobs and ass. And then, kaboom!, it’s like being in a volcanic eruption and She-Hulk is the volcano, roaring out, as big and bold and badass as she wants to be.

  I’m somewhere inside. I can see what she sees and feel what she feels, but I have limited little no control of her behavior.

  She grinned at herself in the mirror and shook out her long waves of hair that were the deep shade of green ink. She grabbed a purple pleather bodysuit and silver boots from the closet, then wiggled into them and sighed with pleasure.

  In less than a minute, she’d hit the express button in the private elevator, which dropped so fast it was almost like being in free fall.

  The elevator opened to the subbasement, which had access to one of the secret tunnels that crisscross Manhattan. Shulky ran because she’s faster than a car in city traffic. She was happy to be out, happy to stretch her long legs, happy to be wearing clothes she thought made her look hot. Or as she spells it, hawt.

  She slipped out of the tunnel at 42nd Street by the Hudson River Greenway. She kept to the shadows as well as a six-foot-seven jade Amazon could keep to the shadows, and then she burst out under the street lamps. A crowd had gathered to watch the action, and they shouted, “She-Hulk! She-Hulk’s here! Shulky!” and she gave a wave while noticing the silver arc of a water sphere shooting like a meteorite across the sky before plummeting down in the direction of Broadway.

  A dozen black-and-whites had red lights flashing at the base of the pier. She scoped out the raft bobbing a hundred yards off in the dark water. Centered on the raft was a contraption with a wheeled turret and mantel that supported a long metal cylinder. The white foam churning around the raft indicated an engine below the surface.

  Sergeant Patricia Palmieri, our favorite NYPD superhuman liaison, waved She-Hulk over. “Shulky, glad you made it.”

  “What’s the scoop, Patty?”

  “We can’t tell if the giant peashooter is remote-controlled or not, since anyone who gets close gets blasted. The main target is the goddamn theater district.”

  “That’s taking the bad reviews of Spider-Man a little too far,” Shulky snarked. Patty laughed because people think anything Shulky says is hilarious. “Is the ammunition just water?”

  “Yes, but you’d have to ask a goddamn physicist how it’s been formed into giant cannonballs. The loading interval seems to take at least twenty-five seconds.”

  “That’s long enough for me to get there. Not to worry, Pattycakes.”

  Another waterball flew through the sky, and She-Hulk sprinted down the pier, her long legs eating up the distance. Then she extended her arms and dived into the river, setting off waves on either side.

  Her legs propelled her quickly to the edge of the raft. Her muscles were so dense that when she hauled her 680 pounds up on the raft, it began to tip over. She rolled to the center of the raft, and as it righted itself, the pea-shooting metal cylinder swung right at her head.

  She thought she heard a manic giggle as she reached up, grabbed the cylinder, and crushed it as easily as a norma
l human would crush an aluminum can.

  An engine suddenly roared, and the raft rocked violently in the wake of a silver capsule jetting away on the surface of the water.

  He’d left too easily.

  When a miscreant departed without a struggle, it was usually because his plan was about to go into Phase II, known among the superheroes as the Let’s-blow-this-mother-up Phase.

  Shulky remained poised on the raft for an instant before she hurled herself off and backflipped into the water. She stretched out, using her massive arms to propel her quickly away from the raft. She took a deep breath then ducked under the surface, going as deep and fast as she could.

  She was already under the pier when she felt the shock waves as the raft exploded.

  She waited until the shrapnel stopped raining on the river before she rose to the surface. She pulled herself out of the river, shook like a dog, and banged on her ear to get the water out. Sergeant Palmieri was soon by her side saying, “You all right?”

  “I will be as soon as my hair dries.”

  “Did you see the perp?”

  “I only heard him. He giggled like a kid, a crazy kid. The peashooter, that’s like something a kid would build. Maybe your team will find out more from the wreckage, but it was almost like a prank—except for the explosion. That’s attempted murder.”

  “So you don’t think there’s superhuman involvement?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say no. Superhuman evildoers are more goal-oriented. This was merely mayhem.”

  “For all of our sakes, I hope you’re right.”

  She-Hulk looked at the bright lights of the city. “Patty, do you mind sending a copy of your report to the Mansion? Cuz I hear a party calling my name.”

  JANUARY 17, 3:47 A.M.

  Returned home without Shulky sexing up anyone. Which was not easy. She is cutting into my sleeping hours, but at least there won’t be any embarrassing videos.

  10:00 A.M.

  Underestimated Shulky’s capacity to be photographed doing something scandalous. Why didn’t I notice that she was grinding on that DJ? And why did she think it was so funny to leave a foil three-pack of condoms like a bookmarker in this journal?

  She wears me out.

  NOLO CONTENDERE

  JANUARY 20

  VALENTINE’S DAY RESOLUTION

  COUNTDOWN: 25 DAYS

  When I walked into the conference room at Quintal, Ulrich, Iverson, Ride, & Cooper, a young woman at the table took one look at me and said in a voice as rich and sweet as Tupelo honey, “Oh, brown pinstripes—how quaint!”

  Thus it begins. I was prepared for mind games, because top attorneys are as bloodthirsty as sharks, and they’d want to make sure that I was one of them. I’m fierce in the courtroom when my adrenaline surges and when I inhabit the role of legal badass, but now I had to surreptitiously wipe my clammy palms on my skirt before shaking hands.

  I recognized Amber Tumbridge from her bio on the QUIRC website, but that small photo didn’t convey how perfectly pretty she was—but in a way meant to intimidate. Her glossy golden blond hair fell perfectly below her shoulders, her complexion was perfectly smooth and creamy, her blue-gray eyes were perfectly clear, her lithe body was perfectly toned, her teeth were perfectly pearly, and her suit was a perfect blue-black color.

  But her physical beauty was nothing compared to her exquisite voice. I found myself wanting to hear her speak even though everything she said was aggressive. The others in the room faded into the background as Amber took control of the interview. Clearly, she’d been designated to hammer me down.

  She managed to mention her Yale Law degree (twice), the Yale Law Review, a recent victory in a corporate espionage case, the renovation of her historic brownstone, and her friendship with prominent political families. She did this while playing with a ginormous diamond engagement ring on her delicate finger.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pulled out a tiny tiara and told me that she’d once been crowned America’s Most Accomplished Toddler.

  Amber gave me more attitude during the Q&A. She called UCLA “a nice public school” and my time with the DA “nice public work.” When I mentioned Dad’s job, she said, “A county sheriff? How nice that he’s a public servant.”

  I could tell that she thought “public” was synonymous with second-rate. Or third-rate. Amber’s lips were smiling, but her eyes were sneering, an expression Dahlia calls smeering. This snideness seemed almost personal, but Amber was that kind of woman.

  My roiling emotions caused Shulky to wake inside of me, yearning to get out and grab Amber by her naturally blond hair, swing her until she whirred like helicopter blades, and launch her at the wall. She wanted to hear that delicious voice as a pure scream. I pressed Shulky back down and forced myself to look calm while Amber questioned me repeatedly about my rapid exodus from several firms.

  Amber kept studying my CV, but one of the time manipulators at the Mansion had tweaked my history to account for the occasions when Shulky had been off-planet. The TM could also jimmy the continuum so I could take weekends off—or maybe visit Paris!

  I’d rehearsed my answers so I sounded reasonably smooth even though my nerves were jittering. “I’ve worked for a variety of companies in order to build up a range of experience so that I can better handle the complexity of my clients’ cases.”

  Amber didn’t say, “What a pile of hooey,” but it was in her eyes.

  I aced the other questions, throwing in heaps of legal Latin, all audi alteram partem this and ex turpi causa non oritur actio that, and I was in the home stretch when Amber said, “We at QUIRC will expect partner-track attorneys to surpass two thousand billable hours,” and watched to see if I’d react to the insane amount of work required at top-echelon firms. “We’re not interested in hiring someone who will decide that spending time with family and friends is more important.”

  “I would expect no less.”

  Amber gave me another smeery look. She waved toward the windows with their stunning view of Manhattan, which still look my breath away, especially at times like this, with a new flurry of snow sparkling in the winter light on building ledges and cornices.

  She said, “The vast majority of the human population is satisfied with the banalities of an average life. One day blurs into the next, one week is indistinguishable from another. Their existence consists of waiting for the weekend, then waiting for retirement, and then waiting for death.”

  Well, hell, she almost made me want to throw myself out the window and let buzzards eat my carcass. Or, considering the geography, rats and pigeons, eww.

  Quinty Quintal peeked at his gold watch and gave me a wink. Something about him seemed familiar, and not just from his photos.

  Amber continued spewing. “Only an exceptional few have the intelligence, skill, and determination to succeed in a place like QUIRC. Do you really believe you’re that rarity, Ms. Walters?”

  I wished I could give her a Valley Girl fer sure, but I said, “My record of successes speaks for itself, Ms. Tumbridge.”

  She wasn’t ready to STFU yet. “We are aware of your friendship with a certain notorious superhuman, but celebrity connections will not factor into our decision.”

  Shulky kicked me behind my eyeballs, and I said, “The appropriate term for She-Hulk is superhero, not the generic superhuman, since her efforts have saved humanity from destruction on numerous occasions. However, I expect no favors because of my outside relationships.”

  Quinty said, “Ms. Walters, I’m very impressed with your UCLA degree—go Bruins!—and with your LLM from Harvard, a very nice private school.” He lifted one bushy eyebrow. “I know that your experience at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzburg, & Holliway prepared you for our grueling schedule. Anyone good enough for Holden Holliway is good enough for me.”

  He chuckled, and everyone but Amber obediently chuckled along, and then he said, “Ms. Walters, if you’re as smart as I think you are, you’re aware of our impending action again
st ReplaceMax Laboratories.”

  I sat up straight. “Yes, I’ve heard that you were planning a suit against their organ cloning division.”

  “I can’t reveal details about our plans, but Maxwell Kirsch continues to stand by ReplaceMax’s defective products,” Quinty said. “If anyone should take ReplaceMax on, the fight will be dirty and brutal.”

  I felt the thrill that I get when I’m challenged in court. I looked Quinty in the eye and said, “If I worked for QUIRC, sir, and you had a case against ReplaceMax, I’d say, ‘Bring it!’ ” I let that hang there, gazing slowly around the room to let them all know that I was ready to crush any opposition.

  Why can’t I have that kind of confidence all the time?

  Half an hour later, the senior partner was saying, “Call me Quinty,” and escorting me to the minimalist lobby. “Ms. Walters, I can’t speak for the others, but I’d be delighted to have you onboard.”

  It wasn’t “We want to hire you,” but it was encouraging, and I said, “Call me Jennifer.”

  “Jennifer, after hearing about your reputation, I thought you’d be a battle-scarred warrior, not a soft-spoken young lady. You’re quite a catch, you know. Legally, I mean.”

  Quinty’s eyes had a sort of Mad Men glint—a far-off expression that men get when they’re nostalgic for the days when they could pinch a girl’s ass and ask for a martini and a blowjob. I wondered what he’d looked like when he was in his prime.

  I didn’t have to wonder for long. The elevator pinged, the doors slid open, and a taller, brawnier, younger version of Quinty stepped out. A version that looked exactly like Ellis Tesla, down to the scar across his right eyebrow.