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Issue #5 by Micah Schwantner (Volume 1)
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Now. The Negative Zone.
Hulk, The Incredible v. 1: To take out the entrails of; to disembowel; as, to hulk a hare [From Old Anglish: holken to hollow out]; n. 1: a very large person; impressive in size or qualities; [Syn] carcass, derelict, leviathan, material body, oaf, physique, ruin, shell, vessel, wreck ~ The American Heritage Dictionary
Have you heard enough? No? Can you see the end? I should have. I have no idea who you are or how you got here or what you want. But if you will listen I will tell you of the time I spent as seasons came and seasons went in the heart of Thiai's timeraft.
# # # # #
BY REQUEST: PREVIOUSLY
4 - Previously, shit hit the fan in defiance of continuity and chronology. Bruce Banner believes he can be free of WHAT? Thiai deposed Xi'aos OFFSCREEN? Who is this Micah guy anyway and why is he fucking with my Hulk!? Stop. Backup.
3 - Previously, Xi'aos had captured and brainwashed Emil Blonsky, the Abomination, in order to draw the Hulk out. It was a plan that succeeded spectacularly in the streets of Billings, Montana, as the Abomination beat the fuck out of the Hulk and then Hulk beat the fuck out of the Abomination, nearly killing him. Later, Agent Pratt captures the Hulk with relative ease, only to lose him five hours later to an army of alien warriors. Stop. Further Back. Issue one!
2 - Previously, The Hulk escaped capture by aliens due to the actions of one of the aliens, the enigmatic female Thiai. Thiai is opposed in her actions by the alien general Xi'aos. Meanwhile, FBI Agent Pratt assembles a team of the Hulk's old foes and allies with the promise of one last great hunt. His right hand woman in all of this is the ice queen FBI Special Agent Eve.
6 - Now, Bruce Banner tells all to a mysterious visitor as he slowly freezes in the wreckage of a military base on the fringes of the Negative Zone. The plot thickens. Aren't you glad you read the last issue? Yes, I'm talking to you too, Meriades!
5 - Soon, all will be revealed. In one month. Or maybe two.
1 - First, In order to save the life of a teenager who wandered into the testing range of a gamma-powered bomb, Dr. Bruce Banner pushed him away but was unfortunately caught in the blast. He survived, but he was forever changed. Now, whenever his terrible rage is released, Bruce Banner transforms into a huge, virtually invincible, green beast with incredible strength. Now, constantly at war with himself, Bruce Banner is nevertheless forced to live with the fact that he is the unstoppable, the indomitable, the incredible...
# # # # #
9 WINTER
Two Years Ago. Tibet.
It starts at the root of my psyche, in the darkness where the only sound is the breath of infinite Hulks, sleeping, chained and dreaming. I stand there and I feel her fingers in my mind, making this possible, giving me a fighting chance. Soon we-
"...SMASH YOU!!" The Hulk roared, "AND THEN I"LL RIP YOUR PUTRID CUNT THROUGH YOUR FACE!!" The Hulk's voice shook free the snow on the surrounding mountains. All around him avalanches growled to life, their rumbles drowning out the next words the Hulk whispered, his voice frigid with ice cold rage. "No, don't surrender Emil. Bitch." He said to the tiny green figure bounding up the mountain beneath him. "Don't fight the programming and the alien drugs. Then we wouldn't fight and then I wouldn't torture you and where would the fun be in that!?"
# # # # #
3 ABOMINATIONLAND
Three Days Earlier. Southern China.
KGB field agents are often multi talented assets. In fact, their greatest weakness may not be their methods but that they have known and predictable goals. Remember that. ~ Natalia Romanov in an unsourced and unofficial S.H.I.E.L.D. training video
The aircraft came in low, its engine filling the mountains of the Sichuan Province with a mind numbing whir. It buzzed the rooftops of the local farming collective and cannonballed into the fields beyond, flipping end over end. Soft earth and expensive components filled the sky as the plane cartwheeled to a stop upside down, its wings twisted, gently burning wreckage. The workers of the collective did not approach it. To them it smelled of government business, best left for the local authorities. The workers of the collective were wise.
Approximately 27 seconds after the crash a spark from the burning wings reached the primary fuel tanks, located where the wings connected to the spine of the aircraft's frame. Six nanoseconds after that the aircraft exploded in a fireball that could be seen from the next town, seventeen kilometers away. A quarter of the outbuildings for collective were destroyed in the fire that followed. Six people lost their lives. Two of them were children.
The Abomination couldn't have cared less. He was a mile away by the time that happened, laughing till tears ran from his reptilian eyes. And then crying because he had no idea why he was laughing.
Now. The Negative Zone.
Hulk, The Incredible v. 1: To take out the entrails of; to disembowel; as, to hulk a hare [From Old Anglish: holken to hollow out]; n. 1: a very large person; impressive in size or qualities; [Syn] carcass, derelict, leviathan, material body, oaf, physique, ruin, shell, vessel, wreck ~ The American Heritage Dictionary
Have you heard enough? No? Can you see the end? I should have. I have no idea who you are or how you got here or what you want. But if you will listen I will tell you of the time I spent as seasons came and seasons went in the heart of Thiai's timeraft.
# # # # #
BY REQUEST: PREVIOUSLY
4 - Previously, shit hit the fan in defiance of continuity and chronology. Bruce Banner believes he can be free of WHAT? Thiai deposed Xi'aos OFFSCREEN? Who is this Micah guy anyway and why is he fucking with my Hulk!? Stop. Backup.
3 - Previously, Xi'aos had captured and brainwashed Emil Blonsky, the Abomination, in order to draw the Hulk out. It was a plan that succeeded spectacularly in the streets of Billings, Montana, as the Abomination beat the fuck out of the Hulk and then Hulk beat the fuck out of the Abomination, nearly killing him. Later, Agent Pratt captures the Hulk with relative ease, only to lose him five hours later to an army of alien warriors. Stop. Further Back. Issue one!
2 - Previously, The Hulk escaped capture by aliens due to the actions of one of the aliens, the enigmatic female Thiai. Thiai is opposed in her actions by the alien general Xi'aos. Meanwhile, FBI Agent Pratt assembles a team of the Hulk's old foes and allies with the promise of one last great hunt. His right hand woman in all of this is the ice queen FBI Special Agent Eve.
6 - Now, Bruce Banner tells all to a mysterious visitor as he slowly freezes in the wreckage of a military base on the fringes of the Negative Zone. The plot thickens. Aren't you glad you read the last issue? Yes, I'm talking to you too, Meriades!
5 - Soon, all will be revealed. In one month. Or maybe two.
1 - First, In order to save the life of a teenager who wandered into the testing range of a gamma-powered bomb, Dr. Bruce Banner pushed him away but was unfortunately caught in the blast. He survived, but he was forever changed. Now, whenever his terrible rage is released, Bruce Banner transforms into a huge, virtually invincible, green beast with incredible strength. Now, constantly at war with himself, Bruce Banner is nevertheless forced to live with the fact that he is the unstoppable, the indomitable, the incredible...
# # # # #
9 WINTER
Two Years Ago. Tibet.
It starts at the root of my psyche, in the darkness where the only sound is the breath of infinite Hulks, sleeping, chained and dreaming. I stand there and I feel her fingers in my mind, making this possible, giving me a fighting chance. Soon we-
"...SMASH YOU!!" The Hulk roared, "AND THEN I"LL RIP YOUR PUTRID CUNT THROUGH YOUR FACE!!" The Hulk's voice shook free the snow on the surrounding mountains. All around him avalanches growled to life, their rumbles drowning out the next words the Hulk whispered, his voice frigid with ice cold rage. "No, don't surrender Emil. Bitch." He said to the tiny green figure bounding up the mountain beneath him. "Don't fight the programming and the alien drugs. Then we wouldn't fight and then I wouldn't torture you and where would the fun be in that!?"
# # # # #
3 ABOMINATIONLAND
Three Days Earlier. Southern China.
KGB field agents are often multi talented assets. In fact, their greatest weakness may not be their methods but that they have known and predictable goals. Remember that. ~ Natalia Romanov in an unsourced and unofficial S.H.I.E.L.D. training video
The aircraft came in low, its engine filling the mountains of the Sichuan Province with a mind numbing whir. It buzzed the rooftops of the local farming collective and cannonballed into the fields beyond, flipping end over end. Soft earth and expensive components filled the sky as the plane cartwheeled to a stop upside down, its wings twisted, gently burning wreckage. The workers of the collective did not approach it. To them it smelled of government business, best left for the local authorities. The workers of the collective were wise.
Approximately 27 seconds after the crash a spark from the burning wings reached the primary fuel tanks, located where the wings connected to the spine of the aircraft's frame. Six nanoseconds after that the aircraft exploded in a fireball that could be seen from the next town, seventeen kilometers away. A quarter of the outbuildings for collective were destroyed in the fire that followed. Six people lost their lives. Two of them were children.
The Abomination couldn't have cared less. He was a mile away by the time that happened, laughing till tears ran from his reptilian eyes. And then crying because he had no idea why he was laughing.
“RAGE: Part Two – Seasons Come & Seasons Go”
5 SPRING
Outside Of Time. Outside Of The Timeraft.
It is theorized that extra-CrossTime space does exist in at least two dimensions. In fact, my colleague and guest speaker, Henry Pym, believes that this three dimensional space may simply be a side effect of a truly two dimensional informational reality snowflake -- 'though that is neither here nor there. ~ Reed Richards in a presentation to the Royal Astronomical Society on Space-Time Dilation and a post-Galactus Cosmos
Xi'aos stood like statue at the center of a seven square mile of featureless white pocket dimension, his back straight. He did not move a muscle. Not even his mandibles. I am, He thought, and every one of the Second-and-Equal knew his thoughts, I am myself/individual/free/predestined potential/Xi'aos. I am the leader/prophet/scapegoat. I saw the portents. I warned the Second-and-Equal. The Second-and-Equal refused/were unable to listen. I could have/will/will not brought about the God Rage. Listen/understand/internalize/know/become: When you die in vain sacrifice/ritual/achievement--when you stand before the First-Among-Equals and give account for you lifeless hulks that have fallen back/before through the when to the base of the Timepalace's console-throne--I knew/was. I will not know/be. I will be Other/(death) to (sadness) to (pain) to (rebirth)/Un-Xi'aos.
Xi'aos lifted his head. He held it there for an endless instant. It was the only movement he made.
be I Xi'aos will not
Then the second law of thermodynamics was defied for an instant and space-time buckled as Xi'aos regressed across nearly a millennium of subjective time to the instant his electromagnetic soul-field was conceived in the heart of micro-scale cosmic fire and sexual bliss. For less than a femtosecond objective time Xi'aos was perfect.
Then the second law of thermodynamics was augmented for an eternity and space-time compressed as What Was Xi'aos progressed across nearly a millennium, evolving forward through a subjective lifetime of continuity dilated isolation. For less than a femtosecond objective time What Was Xi'aos lived and aged and changed. He never moved a fraction of an inch.
# # # # #
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
Begin. She touches me and I descend, the darkness at the back of my skull pulsing with her words and thought knives. I feel it there. Waiting for me. The dark thing I had touched in training and meditation. The incredibly angry it. I move. I
What da fuckin'...
What the hell have they...
"What the--what did you do to him!?" Bruce Banner said as he watched What Was Xi'aos walk precisely across the blank pocket dimension on aged limbs.
Hulk is not afraid! Hulk cannot be afraid!
"Shut up! Oh god..."
Shut yourself up.
Bruce cradled his head in his hands and rocked back and forth. "I can't believe what I just saw!" He stood at the center of a constantly re-assembling cathedral. Around him thousands of baroque crystalline elements swapped places and formed patterns, tracing the infinite sequential sigils of the Second-and-Equal's causality obsessed super-religion. "What did you do, Thiai?" he said, turning to the three foot tall, six-armed, orange skinned, female alien who stood stone still beside him, naked at the heart of a galaxy of slowly revolving cloth strips--her prophetic/sacrificial badges.
"You can't have done that," he said, "This is a law of thermodynamics we're talking about! Reality on a fundamental level! The only things this doesn't apply to are on a less-than-quantum scale!"
This is micro death/macro rebirth, brcbnr. Thiai replied. The Seconds-and-Equals built/conceived/became this to achieve the prize/god/weapon/downfall, a quest/instinct built into our individuality/collectivity/predestined potential/Secondary Equality. Forward/after we can go in life/knowing/being Second-and-Equal. Back/before we can go only in death/ritual/achievement. It is a rule/reality.
It is a rule/reality. But it can be as broken/re-interpreted as any rule/reality can be. This is the only punishment we possess. This is the only sentence/blessing/death we will grant in greed/mercy.
I think I see it now...
Fuck.
...Bruce, god, they remade him from the ground up...
"What did you do!?"
Micro death--the regression/back/before to the conception/singularity/origin--potential/point zero. Macro rebirth--the realization/forward/after that potential/point zero to the now/here/extra-chronological singularity--potential/undefinable. What Was Xi'aos is now What Is Kaia'mos. We remake/love things. It is the only thing our infinite species/race/people/fleet has left from our creators/destroyers/children. You will know/be it better when you understand/internalize/know/become it. We are the Seconds-and-Equals.
# # # # #
Fifteen Hours After The Abomination Lands. The Washington DC.
For better or worse, the struggle against [super-terrorism] may well intensify, rather than ameliorate, unilateralist and isolationist instincts. ~ Charles A. Kupchan in The End of the American Era, Knopf, 2002
"And now we go live to New York as Ann Barnett interviews Captain America, Steve Rogers, not the one we had back in the fifties, about the recent super-terror incident in China involving the Abomination, a villain most often tied to Hulk appearances," squawked the blue-suited anchor from the hotel room television as the screen cut to an establishing shot of the Avenger's Mansion. "Ann?"
The screen cut to Ann Barnett, NBC's senior East Coast Avengers correspondent. "Hello Barry. As you can see I'm here with Captain America here at Avenger's HQ," said the brunette reporter from her perch on the Mansion steps. "Captain, it is the position of the Chinese government that, and I quote, 'international super-powered assistance shall be denied in the event of a natural or unnatural disaster'. You guys knew this. Why did you go all the way to Taiwan to offer it anyway?"
Captain America looked straight out of the TV at the American people. His blue eyes were like ice, his face open yet firm. The breeze rippled his blond hair. He smiled. He was a propaganda weapon left over from an earlier era to inspire the unsuspecting audiences of the new century. Ann Barnett wanted to kiss him really, really bad. "Ann, when the Avenger's showed up we weren't trying to dominate of infiltrate or aggravate China. We were trying to help. Thats the Avenger's goal, its in their mission statement, and its all they've ever done. Help."
"Thats noble of you guys. But what do think about the Chinese stance of foreign super-powered aid?"
"China needs to understand that it is a newer smaller world we live in. A global response is the only way to respond to super-terror. Otherwise the terrorists have achieved their goals of sowing divisiveness and mistrust. Thats the goal of the Avenger's, Ann, not just my opinion. A united world is a super-terrorists worst nightmare." Captain America said. He turned away from the screen to stare Ann straight in the eyes. She almost gasped audibly. "As you know, Ann," he said, "I met with the liaison to the Avenger's from the Chinese Embassy just a few minutes ago and I hope I got that idea across to him."
"I'm sure you did, Captain." Ann beamed as her heart became a drumroll beneath her breasts. She looked out of the screen toward an imagined anchor desk in New York. "I'm sure you did. Back to you, Barry."
SNAPHISS
"Bullshit," said General Thadeus "Thunderbolt" Ross as he killed the power to the TV. He sighed as he sat on the unmade hotel bed. Why am I out here? Why did I even care about the lies he told? Why can't I just be happy with the outcome. The Hulk is out of my hair, finally. Finally. "Bullshit," Ross repeated. He looked at the wall of the hotel room, sickly green with a nondescript still life hung where he imagined a window might have been. Then he heaved himself off the bed, feeling the consequences of a lifetime's abuse in his knees. He walked over to the hotel phone and picked it up without bothering to dial.
"You!" he yelled at the technicians he was sure were tapping his phone, "Get me a secure line to Agent Pratt. I don't care how sedated he is, we need to talk. Call me back in one minute." He hung up.
Ross walked back to the bed and sat down. He turned the television back on as he waited for the phone to ring. And it did, exactly sixty-three seconds later.
# # # # #
6 SUMMER
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
Crouch in a sea of Hulkforms. They twitch simultaneously, a subconscious aftershock of her actions. And the ground twitches with them. Camera 1: Pull way back. Show them that they are standing on the sleeping beast. Camera 2: Keep on his eyes. I know
Nine feet tall. Two tons. Green. The Hulk roared down,"Shut UP, orange thing! Hulk not animal! Hulk not fight. Duh!"
"I know," replied Thiai. "Hlkthng will un-know/not be." They stood together in a huge, gray hollow space at the center of the timeraft. Miles above them, shrouded in mist and planetary class force-shielding and crystalline mobiles, was the cosmic engine that powered the craft. It revolved slowly, a massive sphere made of interlocking gears with a star caged at its heart.
Oh shit! Lissen ta da lady dumbshi--
Crap! Stop being so stubborn. She trying to--
"Shut UP!" screamed the Hulk. He took a swing at Thiai only to have his hand pass through her form, leaving it a mess of static. For a second he didn't understand. Where did she go? Where was the satisfying blood and mess? Then a memory kicked in hard and he remembered. They'd done this before, made him believe that they were there when they weren't and then laughed at him as he beat up lightshows or metal things that looked like men but bled milk and wires. They'd done this before, made him look like a, what was the word, a...
A hologram. She's a smart...
Man oh man does she know howta push yer buttons...
"MORON! You think Hulk a moron, now? Huh, orange thing? HUH?!?"
The static disappeared. Thiai was long gone, both in hologram and flesh. The Hulk was alone at the center of the timeraft. He roared, feeling warmth rush through his core. Emotion fueled power, a familiar drug. They'd done a bad thing, he roared in the back of his mind. They were the morons. They'd just made him very very angry and he was just getting angrier and when he got angry he got strong and when he got strong he was the strongest one there is. Then they would pay.
Then they will pay for my rage.
But there was no one there to make pay, just walls and floor and something massive and mechanical so high as to be an impossible target.
The Hulk smashed the floor in frustration, shouting half remembered curses. He didn't even scratch it. He screamed and pounded his fists against the floor till they were raw, but he couldn't feel the pain. Drops of green blood flicked across the gray floor and were absorbed, removing any sign of his efforts. For perhaps the first time in his life, the Savage Hulk had absolutely nothing he could hit. Nothing he could take his ever mounting anger out on.
The Hulks screamed under the building pressure of their anger
My god, what's she doing to us?
Again
What da, I think ya'll are crazy but...
and again
She said she would help me! She said she would get rid of you!
and again.
Ya basterd! Get rid of me when I'm yer only fuckin hope...
till their hands were raw and their throats burned and they felt their rage like a fire in a tiny box with endless fuel and no exit,
Stop, can't you feel it you idiots! She's doing something to us and we're only helping! She's got us down to a science...
till they felt their rage rise up up up like a suitcase nuke on a short fuse riding an unstoppable elevator to the top floor and no exit.
Fuck you prof!
Oh dear god please, this anger...
That's it! You stupid dissociative wimp! Can't you see it past your whining and your passive aggressive posing? You let her in and now she's letting the real you out...
Stop this! This isn't my fault, none of this, dear god... Stop victimizing me!
Fuck god, get dat orange E.T. chick ta talk ta me, I c'n still work somethin' out...
Stop being a victim! Stand up for yourself once! Realize this: millions will die once she's through with you and its all very much your fault!
Please...
Can't you see the extrapolations of a Savage with this much anger bottled up!? Can't you see past your self pity to your responsibility!?
Please... Its not me...
We disgust me, Banner! We disgust me!
The Hulks screamed for hours, thrashing in the empty core of the timeraft till their hands were shredded muscle and glistening bone. They raged in their skull fury hitting them in orgasmic waves, driving them to mad extremes. Time passed, mutable as ever at the heart of Thiai's kingdom, and they didn't care. They were in hell and it was them. But if they had been silent, in the darkest reaches of Bruce Banner's mind they would have heard harsh laughter.
# # # # #
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
My subconscious is a chained and dreaming demon, more massive than any Hulk I have ever seen. And it has my face, twisted with unimaginably cold anger. This is the me I have to release. It all depends on the truth now. I hate what I am doing and I wonder if I will ever find my way back. It grows
"How long do I..." A pause. A sigh. Reluctant to speak you feelings? Don't worry, she'll listen. She'll believe you. She always does. That's exactly what I'm afraid of. "I don't think I've ever been this happy," Bruce Banner told the woman in red as they lay together, naked and enjoying the afterglow. "This can't last. I don't even think it. I know it can't last because for some reason I know it never has."
"What makes you say that?" the woman in red replied. She spoke slowly -- though not as slow as she had when they first met, when it seemed as if she struggled to construct sentences out of simple concepts -- and precisely. Her voice sounded like Bruce imagined honey would sound, if it could. Rich and sweet, perhaps a little too sweet, and addicting in its subtleties. "I thought I was your first, dear..."
"But you are, that's the thing..."
"Then you're dreaming, Bruce, dearest. Why shouldn't this last forever?" She laughed and it reminded Bruce of a trickling stream. "I wish it would."
How does she do that? Do what? Pull the words right out of my head, adjust herself to answer me before I've communicated. "So do I. But..." She knows you Bruce, she has for three years. "...I can't help but feeling that this has happened before and it ended horribly. Its almost like remembering a dream, you know? Its there..."
"...Like mist. I dream too, sometimes, that things go wrong. But thats all they are, dreams."
"There's more to it than that." Isn't there always more to it? Doesn't a dream always seem real till the end? "I could swear, there's something in me. Anger. And something more. And it wants out, when I dream, I think." You're confus...
"You're confusing me, Bru..."
"Am I confusing... Oh." See! She did it again. "I... I don't know..."
"Then don't try to explain it, darling."
"But I have to! How do i tell you this... I think..." And then a long silence. How am I supposed to say this? how am I supposed to tell her that I've seen through it, that every time I dream, every time, its the same thing...
"What is it Bruce?"
# # # # #
[Undefinable Timeframe]. This is a Dream.
It RUSHES UP roaring like a freight train (A GREEN THING, HUGE, EYES LIKE LAMPS) and ( ITS LIKE A MALFORMED MAN ARMOURED IN LAYERS OF GREEN MUSCLE AND FAT, ITS TEETH, OH DEAR GOD, THE TEETH SHARP LIKE) its mouth is full of sharpened stakes, dripping orange blood (BIZARRE PHOTONEGATIVE!) and red blood and (ARTERIAL non-ILLUSIONARY TRUTH HEMORRAGING THROUGH DREAMS INTO) green (GREEN) blood! And it says: THAT LOOK ETCHED IN YOUR FATHER'S FACE WHEN HE BEAT YOU. IT WASN'T ANGER, IT WAS HATE BORN OF FEAR. FEAR OF YOU. FEAR OF THE RAGE IN YOUR EYES!
# # # # #
"What is it Bruce?"
"I... I don't know..." Bruce put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. I wish I could just forget this. Watch.
"Then forget it," she said.
Simple, you're soul mates. You read the book, right? "I can't."
"Honey... Bruce, my love. You can forget anything you put your mind to," she said. She rolled over in bed, shamelessly letting the covers fall from her breasts. She wrapped her arms around him and he felt her warmth, comforting like a blanket on a cold night. She kissed him on the top of his head, trailed her lips down his temple to his throat, whispered: "Look at what you've already forgotten."
What? She's right. Look, you forgot me! "I..." Yes we can. "I can..." So Bruce forgot, just as he had the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. The sex that followed was the best he could ever remember.
"I love you, Thiai."
"I love you too."
# # # # #
7 FALL
Two and a Half Days after the Abomination Lands. Columbia, Maryland.
"Two basic principles... underlie all strategic planning... The first principle is act with the utmost concentration. The second principle is to act with the utmost speed" ~ Carl von Clausewitz
Pratt came back from the hospital, after only a few days in the ICU. He was cheerful and high on painkillers. He tapped away at his modified Blackberry as he rolled through the aisles of Columbia's FBI Regional Office in an armored wheelchair. His broken foot, plastered into an elephants stump and extending out in front of him in an elevation sling, had a parking sign hanging from it -- HANDICAPPED.
"Ross, Eve!" he called as they wheeled him into makeshift lab Eve had cobbled together in the office's parking garage out of the remains of the old one. "Come here. I think we've done it!"
Eve was at his side in an instant, her suit sterile as always. She was smiling a smile that didn't reach to her eyes. She was silent, even in high heels. Ross followed a moment later. He was grimacing and cursing under his breath. His suit was hanging over his arm, a tragedy of old starch and no dry cleaning.
"What is this?" he said as he came into earshot. "I got bad directions and no one told me this place was stuffed behind an office on a back road!" He pointed a finger at Pratt. "And you and I need to talk."
"It can wait," said Eve.
"No it can't. This charade has to end," Ros spat. He strode up to Pratt and leaned into his face. "I know who you work for."
"Please," Pratt smiled, "I know all about your little searches. I've listened to all your little code worded chats with Ms. Waynesboro down in Psyche/Strategy. I took me two minutes to figure out what you were up to. And..."
"You--"
"No. Stop. Despite the fact that I'm interested in how you figured it all out, I really don't care. This is bigger than us." Pratt held up his blackberry. Its screen was a single red button: DEPLOY. "I think you'll agree, even with the small amount of information you have, that what we are doing here is necessary to a degree." Pratt hit enter.
"We win," said Eve. She turned away from Pratt, whispered, "Comes a Barony."
A red light began flashing across the enclosure. A tech yelled: "The Nano-Virus is active! I repeat, Nano-Virus active!"
Pratt grinned as Ross stepped back, stunned. "Eve," he said, "Get Thunderbolt here a SitBrief. General Ross, you are now party to xenocide and crimes against the Union. Welcome to Operation: Trojan Horse."
# # # # #
9 WINTER
Later/Meanwhile. The Timeraft
Louder and louder, now. The breathing is becoming a roar. Thiai's fingers twist and I feel myself become free, shackles cast off as thAT BRUCE THING IS SUBSUMED. I AM WHAT I AM. I FEEL. I BREATHE. I RAGE. I PUll the shackles tight again, binding myself with chains of coruscating self loathing till I scream. I will not become my rage. My rage will become me.
Bruce was in the kitchen, frying eggs and Boca-sausage, when Thiai came to him. They were both next to naked, the honeymoon was barely over and just starting. He was wearing a bathrobe because the oven was the only heating whoever built the apartment had thought to install. She wasn't wearing anything because she said she loved the way his eyes widened when she walked into a room.
Sometimes he asked her if she got cold. She would often smile, her head tilting to the side, one eye closing in an almost wink, and say 'yes, but I like the cold'. But sometimes she would just nod silently, her face almost blank, and he knew that he had somewhere crossed some line from asking about her clothing habits to asking about her mood. So he would hug her, and hope that it was enough -- and often it was -- and wonder if sometime far down the road when they'd had children and raised them and were comfortably old together he'd understand her complex feelings. He doubted it.
"Bruce," she said. "You were right."
"What?" Where did that come from? Has she ever said that to you? I don't think so. You? No...
This was a break in the shown and accepted pattern of interaction for two reasons: first, Thiai was never wrong. Even Bruce knew this, though occasionally he had to be reminded of it. They would argue over something so small neither of them really cared about it -- it was winning that mattered, the victory not the battle -- and he would be right but somehow, somewhere in there they would get turned around and she would be right and he would apologize and they would stand there after the shouting was over, like exhausted boxers embracing each other in the center of the ring. Then they would kiss -- long and passionate, always -- and often they would make love, rutting like happy animals in heat, sealing their cessation of hostilities.
Second, Bruce had heard her coming. Bruce never heard Thiai enter a room, only saw her. It was generally enough for him. He had been to at least one party where she silenced the room with her noiseless sinewy walk. Half cat, half wind blown grass, all goddess of the dance. He had called it her lioness walk on the drunken laughing night when they first had rough glorious sex on the balcony of a university frathouse -- before the cheating and the break-up and the re-discovery.
"Bruce. Love. You were right and I lied to you."
"What are you saying? I'm not..."
"You were right, every time you wondered and forgot. Its not real."
"What isn't..?" You know.
# # # # #
[Undefinable Timeframe]. This is a Dream.
It RUSHES UP roaring like a freight train and its mouth is full of sharpened stakes, dripping orange blood and red blood and green blood! And it says something that you can't hear, because your wife who isn't human is telling you that DREAMS AND REALITY HAVE JUST SWITCHED PLACES...
# # # # #
"Oh."
“Oh GOD!"
"It is what you've always known, my love. Its what you always were and what you learned/became. It is illusion/untruth. And I birthed it...
See...
Bruce stood with Thiai, naked on the side of a snow blanketed mountain wrapped in a howling blizzard. In front of him the mountain sheered away, dropping thousands of feet in a bare rock cliff-face to a deep valley where patches of green were visible through the snow. On the other side of the valley another mountain, or perhaps another extension of this mountain shot up hundreds of feet into the sky and then abruptly plateaued. Metal, bizarrely hued and alien, jutted out of the plateau at a steep angle. Bruce gasped as the cold snatched the breath away from him. He doubled over, hugging himself and shivering uncontrollably.
And watched some massive reptilian monster tore into the alien structure on the far side of the valley.
See that it is you must sentence/bless/kill. Learn what it is you must know/become. The Rage/prize/god/weapon/downfall is incubating inside you. Reach/look to down/inward. Reach/learn/become and rise to rage/conquer. It does not have to end like that.
# # # # #
12 MEMORY LOSS
"What we found was completely surprising. If you recall [an] event... you increase susceptibility to misinformation. Recalling something, actually enhances your ability to learn misinformation." ~ Jason Chan, psychologist
I don't remember much after that. I remember her talking to me, yes. And I remember my... anger. At her. At myself for believing her. At the world. It was both reasonable and irrational, alien and terrifyingly comfortable.
What did you do?
I think I tried to kill her, grabbing her around the neck and twisting like a madman. For some reason her skin was incredibly hard and her voice was very loud in the back of my skull. She told me that the green thing, the abomination on the other hill, was who I should be angry at. She told me that our love could have gone on forever if not for its intervention. She told me that I had the tools inside me to deal with it, to kill it, if only I reached for them...
And then?
And then she said she could show me how. She touched my temples with four hands and sixteen fingers. She whispered as I saw the change approach, the tools appear: sleeping far below me, their mouths full of sharpened stakes, curled in a cavern of green that moved with my heartbeat. Then it starts at the root of my psyche...
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hey guys. I never liked the Hulk. No, wait, that's way to dramatic (which is something you guys know I'm not) plus it makes me look like JJ Abrams (who you guys know I'm not). I actually love the Hulk. I think he is one of the greatest archetypal herothings since Batman. I think he's the ultimate symbol of the way progress can destroy us, turning us into something we aren't. Which is of course why I'm screwing with him royally. I have a plan for this dude and right now I'm feeling very protective and loving toward him, mainly because next issue he gets raped.
But first, I apologize for the lateness of this, my second issue. I picked exactly the wrong time to try to write FanFic. No sooner had I started this thing than a perfect storm of family and school and work whipped up. I expect the next issue will take less time to write and will be extremely short. I think I'll post it on Twitter or something and just send the Editors a link.
Oh, and I was planning to answer some feedback right here, but as the issue got later and later I just said, "screw that, I'll be mysterious like Alan Moore and they'll think I'm the mostest cleverest bastard ever!" So you guys get no letter page simulacrum. That said, however, I'm gonna get back to that one guy who wrote that one thing about not understanding why I put the bipolar fight scenes at the beginning of the last issue. Dude, they were just there to make the thing longer. I was feeling lazy. Read the issue before it. Its pretty gosh-darn good.
Outside Of Time. Outside Of The Timeraft.
It is theorized that extra-CrossTime space does exist in at least two dimensions. In fact, my colleague and guest speaker, Henry Pym, believes that this three dimensional space may simply be a side effect of a truly two dimensional informational reality snowflake -- 'though that is neither here nor there. ~ Reed Richards in a presentation to the Royal Astronomical Society on Space-Time Dilation and a post-Galactus Cosmos
Xi'aos stood like statue at the center of a seven square mile of featureless white pocket dimension, his back straight. He did not move a muscle. Not even his mandibles. I am, He thought, and every one of the Second-and-Equal knew his thoughts, I am myself/individual/free/predestined potential/Xi'aos. I am the leader/prophet/scapegoat. I saw the portents. I warned the Second-and-Equal. The Second-and-Equal refused/were unable to listen. I could have/will/will not brought about the God Rage. Listen/understand/internalize/know/become: When you die in vain sacrifice/ritual/achievement--when you stand before the First-Among-Equals and give account for you lifeless hulks that have fallen back/before through the when to the base of the Timepalace's console-throne--I knew/was. I will not know/be. I will be Other/(death) to (sadness) to (pain) to (rebirth)/Un-Xi'aos.
Xi'aos lifted his head. He held it there for an endless instant. It was the only movement he made.
be I Xi'aos will not
Then the second law of thermodynamics was defied for an instant and space-time buckled as Xi'aos regressed across nearly a millennium of subjective time to the instant his electromagnetic soul-field was conceived in the heart of micro-scale cosmic fire and sexual bliss. For less than a femtosecond objective time Xi'aos was perfect.
Then the second law of thermodynamics was augmented for an eternity and space-time compressed as What Was Xi'aos progressed across nearly a millennium, evolving forward through a subjective lifetime of continuity dilated isolation. For less than a femtosecond objective time What Was Xi'aos lived and aged and changed. He never moved a fraction of an inch.
# # # # #
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
Begin. She touches me and I descend, the darkness at the back of my skull pulsing with her words and thought knives. I feel it there. Waiting for me. The dark thing I had touched in training and meditation. The incredibly angry it. I move. I
What da fuckin'...
What the hell have they...
"What the--what did you do to him!?" Bruce Banner said as he watched What Was Xi'aos walk precisely across the blank pocket dimension on aged limbs.
Hulk is not afraid! Hulk cannot be afraid!
"Shut up! Oh god..."
Shut yourself up.
Bruce cradled his head in his hands and rocked back and forth. "I can't believe what I just saw!" He stood at the center of a constantly re-assembling cathedral. Around him thousands of baroque crystalline elements swapped places and formed patterns, tracing the infinite sequential sigils of the Second-and-Equal's causality obsessed super-religion. "What did you do, Thiai?" he said, turning to the three foot tall, six-armed, orange skinned, female alien who stood stone still beside him, naked at the heart of a galaxy of slowly revolving cloth strips--her prophetic/sacrificial badges.
"You can't have done that," he said, "This is a law of thermodynamics we're talking about! Reality on a fundamental level! The only things this doesn't apply to are on a less-than-quantum scale!"
This is micro death/macro rebirth, brcbnr. Thiai replied. The Seconds-and-Equals built/conceived/became this to achieve the prize/god/weapon/downfall, a quest/instinct built into our individuality/collectivity/predestined potential/Secondary Equality. Forward/after we can go in life/knowing/being Second-and-Equal. Back/before we can go only in death/ritual/achievement. It is a rule/reality.
It is a rule/reality. But it can be as broken/re-interpreted as any rule/reality can be. This is the only punishment we possess. This is the only sentence/blessing/death we will grant in greed/mercy.
I think I see it now...
Fuck.
...Bruce, god, they remade him from the ground up...
"What did you do!?"
Micro death--the regression/back/before to the conception/singularity/origin--potential/point zero. Macro rebirth--the realization/forward/after that potential/point zero to the now/here/extra-chronological singularity--potential/undefinable. What Was Xi'aos is now What Is Kaia'mos. We remake/love things. It is the only thing our infinite species/race/people/fleet has left from our creators/destroyers/children. You will know/be it better when you understand/internalize/know/become it. We are the Seconds-and-Equals.
# # # # #
Fifteen Hours After The Abomination Lands. The Washington DC.
For better or worse, the struggle against [super-terrorism] may well intensify, rather than ameliorate, unilateralist and isolationist instincts. ~ Charles A. Kupchan in The End of the American Era, Knopf, 2002
"And now we go live to New York as Ann Barnett interviews Captain America, Steve Rogers, not the one we had back in the fifties, about the recent super-terror incident in China involving the Abomination, a villain most often tied to Hulk appearances," squawked the blue-suited anchor from the hotel room television as the screen cut to an establishing shot of the Avenger's Mansion. "Ann?"
The screen cut to Ann Barnett, NBC's senior East Coast Avengers correspondent. "Hello Barry. As you can see I'm here with Captain America here at Avenger's HQ," said the brunette reporter from her perch on the Mansion steps. "Captain, it is the position of the Chinese government that, and I quote, 'international super-powered assistance shall be denied in the event of a natural or unnatural disaster'. You guys knew this. Why did you go all the way to Taiwan to offer it anyway?"
Captain America looked straight out of the TV at the American people. His blue eyes were like ice, his face open yet firm. The breeze rippled his blond hair. He smiled. He was a propaganda weapon left over from an earlier era to inspire the unsuspecting audiences of the new century. Ann Barnett wanted to kiss him really, really bad. "Ann, when the Avenger's showed up we weren't trying to dominate of infiltrate or aggravate China. We were trying to help. Thats the Avenger's goal, its in their mission statement, and its all they've ever done. Help."
"Thats noble of you guys. But what do think about the Chinese stance of foreign super-powered aid?"
"China needs to understand that it is a newer smaller world we live in. A global response is the only way to respond to super-terror. Otherwise the terrorists have achieved their goals of sowing divisiveness and mistrust. Thats the goal of the Avenger's, Ann, not just my opinion. A united world is a super-terrorists worst nightmare." Captain America said. He turned away from the screen to stare Ann straight in the eyes. She almost gasped audibly. "As you know, Ann," he said, "I met with the liaison to the Avenger's from the Chinese Embassy just a few minutes ago and I hope I got that idea across to him."
"I'm sure you did, Captain." Ann beamed as her heart became a drumroll beneath her breasts. She looked out of the screen toward an imagined anchor desk in New York. "I'm sure you did. Back to you, Barry."
SNAPHISS
"Bullshit," said General Thadeus "Thunderbolt" Ross as he killed the power to the TV. He sighed as he sat on the unmade hotel bed. Why am I out here? Why did I even care about the lies he told? Why can't I just be happy with the outcome. The Hulk is out of my hair, finally. Finally. "Bullshit," Ross repeated. He looked at the wall of the hotel room, sickly green with a nondescript still life hung where he imagined a window might have been. Then he heaved himself off the bed, feeling the consequences of a lifetime's abuse in his knees. He walked over to the hotel phone and picked it up without bothering to dial.
"You!" he yelled at the technicians he was sure were tapping his phone, "Get me a secure line to Agent Pratt. I don't care how sedated he is, we need to talk. Call me back in one minute." He hung up.
Ross walked back to the bed and sat down. He turned the television back on as he waited for the phone to ring. And it did, exactly sixty-three seconds later.
# # # # #
6 SUMMER
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
Crouch in a sea of Hulkforms. They twitch simultaneously, a subconscious aftershock of her actions. And the ground twitches with them. Camera 1: Pull way back. Show them that they are standing on the sleeping beast. Camera 2: Keep on his eyes. I know
Nine feet tall. Two tons. Green. The Hulk roared down,"Shut UP, orange thing! Hulk not animal! Hulk not fight. Duh!"
"I know," replied Thiai. "Hlkthng will un-know/not be." They stood together in a huge, gray hollow space at the center of the timeraft. Miles above them, shrouded in mist and planetary class force-shielding and crystalline mobiles, was the cosmic engine that powered the craft. It revolved slowly, a massive sphere made of interlocking gears with a star caged at its heart.
Oh shit! Lissen ta da lady dumbshi--
Crap! Stop being so stubborn. She trying to--
"Shut UP!" screamed the Hulk. He took a swing at Thiai only to have his hand pass through her form, leaving it a mess of static. For a second he didn't understand. Where did she go? Where was the satisfying blood and mess? Then a memory kicked in hard and he remembered. They'd done this before, made him believe that they were there when they weren't and then laughed at him as he beat up lightshows or metal things that looked like men but bled milk and wires. They'd done this before, made him look like a, what was the word, a...
A hologram. She's a smart...
Man oh man does she know howta push yer buttons...
"MORON! You think Hulk a moron, now? Huh, orange thing? HUH?!?"
The static disappeared. Thiai was long gone, both in hologram and flesh. The Hulk was alone at the center of the timeraft. He roared, feeling warmth rush through his core. Emotion fueled power, a familiar drug. They'd done a bad thing, he roared in the back of his mind. They were the morons. They'd just made him very very angry and he was just getting angrier and when he got angry he got strong and when he got strong he was the strongest one there is. Then they would pay.
Then they will pay for my rage.
But there was no one there to make pay, just walls and floor and something massive and mechanical so high as to be an impossible target.
The Hulk smashed the floor in frustration, shouting half remembered curses. He didn't even scratch it. He screamed and pounded his fists against the floor till they were raw, but he couldn't feel the pain. Drops of green blood flicked across the gray floor and were absorbed, removing any sign of his efforts. For perhaps the first time in his life, the Savage Hulk had absolutely nothing he could hit. Nothing he could take his ever mounting anger out on.
The Hulks screamed under the building pressure of their anger
My god, what's she doing to us?
Again
What da, I think ya'll are crazy but...
and again
She said she would help me! She said she would get rid of you!
and again.
Ya basterd! Get rid of me when I'm yer only fuckin hope...
till their hands were raw and their throats burned and they felt their rage like a fire in a tiny box with endless fuel and no exit,
Stop, can't you feel it you idiots! She's doing something to us and we're only helping! She's got us down to a science...
till they felt their rage rise up up up like a suitcase nuke on a short fuse riding an unstoppable elevator to the top floor and no exit.
Fuck you prof!
Oh dear god please, this anger...
That's it! You stupid dissociative wimp! Can't you see it past your whining and your passive aggressive posing? You let her in and now she's letting the real you out...
Stop this! This isn't my fault, none of this, dear god... Stop victimizing me!
Fuck god, get dat orange E.T. chick ta talk ta me, I c'n still work somethin' out...
Stop being a victim! Stand up for yourself once! Realize this: millions will die once she's through with you and its all very much your fault!
Please...
Can't you see the extrapolations of a Savage with this much anger bottled up!? Can't you see past your self pity to your responsibility!?
Please... Its not me...
We disgust me, Banner! We disgust me!
The Hulks screamed for hours, thrashing in the empty core of the timeraft till their hands were shredded muscle and glistening bone. They raged in their skull fury hitting them in orgasmic waves, driving them to mad extremes. Time passed, mutable as ever at the heart of Thiai's kingdom, and they didn't care. They were in hell and it was them. But if they had been silent, in the darkest reaches of Bruce Banner's mind they would have heard harsh laughter.
# # # # #
Meanwhile. The Timeraft.
My subconscious is a chained and dreaming demon, more massive than any Hulk I have ever seen. And it has my face, twisted with unimaginably cold anger. This is the me I have to release. It all depends on the truth now. I hate what I am doing and I wonder if I will ever find my way back. It grows
"How long do I..." A pause. A sigh. Reluctant to speak you feelings? Don't worry, she'll listen. She'll believe you. She always does. That's exactly what I'm afraid of. "I don't think I've ever been this happy," Bruce Banner told the woman in red as they lay together, naked and enjoying the afterglow. "This can't last. I don't even think it. I know it can't last because for some reason I know it never has."
"What makes you say that?" the woman in red replied. She spoke slowly -- though not as slow as she had when they first met, when it seemed as if she struggled to construct sentences out of simple concepts -- and precisely. Her voice sounded like Bruce imagined honey would sound, if it could. Rich and sweet, perhaps a little too sweet, and addicting in its subtleties. "I thought I was your first, dear..."
"But you are, that's the thing..."
"Then you're dreaming, Bruce, dearest. Why shouldn't this last forever?" She laughed and it reminded Bruce of a trickling stream. "I wish it would."
How does she do that? Do what? Pull the words right out of my head, adjust herself to answer me before I've communicated. "So do I. But..." She knows you Bruce, she has for three years. "...I can't help but feeling that this has happened before and it ended horribly. Its almost like remembering a dream, you know? Its there..."
"...Like mist. I dream too, sometimes, that things go wrong. But thats all they are, dreams."
"There's more to it than that." Isn't there always more to it? Doesn't a dream always seem real till the end? "I could swear, there's something in me. Anger. And something more. And it wants out, when I dream, I think." You're confus...
"You're confusing me, Bru..."
"Am I confusing... Oh." See! She did it again. "I... I don't know..."
"Then don't try to explain it, darling."
"But I have to! How do i tell you this... I think..." And then a long silence. How am I supposed to say this? how am I supposed to tell her that I've seen through it, that every time I dream, every time, its the same thing...
"What is it Bruce?"
# # # # #
[Undefinable Timeframe]. This is a Dream.
It RUSHES UP roaring like a freight train (A GREEN THING, HUGE, EYES LIKE LAMPS) and ( ITS LIKE A MALFORMED MAN ARMOURED IN LAYERS OF GREEN MUSCLE AND FAT, ITS TEETH, OH DEAR GOD, THE TEETH SHARP LIKE) its mouth is full of sharpened stakes, dripping orange blood (BIZARRE PHOTONEGATIVE!) and red blood and (ARTERIAL non-ILLUSIONARY TRUTH HEMORRAGING THROUGH DREAMS INTO) green (GREEN) blood! And it says: THAT LOOK ETCHED IN YOUR FATHER'S FACE WHEN HE BEAT YOU. IT WASN'T ANGER, IT WAS HATE BORN OF FEAR. FEAR OF YOU. FEAR OF THE RAGE IN YOUR EYES!
# # # # #
"What is it Bruce?"
"I... I don't know..." Bruce put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. I wish I could just forget this. Watch.
"Then forget it," she said.
Simple, you're soul mates. You read the book, right? "I can't."
"Honey... Bruce, my love. You can forget anything you put your mind to," she said. She rolled over in bed, shamelessly letting the covers fall from her breasts. She wrapped her arms around him and he felt her warmth, comforting like a blanket on a cold night. She kissed him on the top of his head, trailed her lips down his temple to his throat, whispered: "Look at what you've already forgotten."
What? She's right. Look, you forgot me! "I..." Yes we can. "I can..." So Bruce forgot, just as he had the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. The sex that followed was the best he could ever remember.
"I love you, Thiai."
"I love you too."
# # # # #
7 FALL
Two and a Half Days after the Abomination Lands. Columbia, Maryland.
"Two basic principles... underlie all strategic planning... The first principle is act with the utmost concentration. The second principle is to act with the utmost speed" ~ Carl von Clausewitz
Pratt came back from the hospital, after only a few days in the ICU. He was cheerful and high on painkillers. He tapped away at his modified Blackberry as he rolled through the aisles of Columbia's FBI Regional Office in an armored wheelchair. His broken foot, plastered into an elephants stump and extending out in front of him in an elevation sling, had a parking sign hanging from it -- HANDICAPPED.
"Ross, Eve!" he called as they wheeled him into makeshift lab Eve had cobbled together in the office's parking garage out of the remains of the old one. "Come here. I think we've done it!"
Eve was at his side in an instant, her suit sterile as always. She was smiling a smile that didn't reach to her eyes. She was silent, even in high heels. Ross followed a moment later. He was grimacing and cursing under his breath. His suit was hanging over his arm, a tragedy of old starch and no dry cleaning.
"What is this?" he said as he came into earshot. "I got bad directions and no one told me this place was stuffed behind an office on a back road!" He pointed a finger at Pratt. "And you and I need to talk."
"It can wait," said Eve.
"No it can't. This charade has to end," Ros spat. He strode up to Pratt and leaned into his face. "I know who you work for."
"Please," Pratt smiled, "I know all about your little searches. I've listened to all your little code worded chats with Ms. Waynesboro down in Psyche/Strategy. I took me two minutes to figure out what you were up to. And..."
"You--"
"No. Stop. Despite the fact that I'm interested in how you figured it all out, I really don't care. This is bigger than us." Pratt held up his blackberry. Its screen was a single red button: DEPLOY. "I think you'll agree, even with the small amount of information you have, that what we are doing here is necessary to a degree." Pratt hit enter.
"We win," said Eve. She turned away from Pratt, whispered, "Comes a Barony."
A red light began flashing across the enclosure. A tech yelled: "The Nano-Virus is active! I repeat, Nano-Virus active!"
Pratt grinned as Ross stepped back, stunned. "Eve," he said, "Get Thunderbolt here a SitBrief. General Ross, you are now party to xenocide and crimes against the Union. Welcome to Operation: Trojan Horse."
# # # # #
9 WINTER
Later/Meanwhile. The Timeraft
Louder and louder, now. The breathing is becoming a roar. Thiai's fingers twist and I feel myself become free, shackles cast off as thAT BRUCE THING IS SUBSUMED. I AM WHAT I AM. I FEEL. I BREATHE. I RAGE. I PUll the shackles tight again, binding myself with chains of coruscating self loathing till I scream. I will not become my rage. My rage will become me.
Bruce was in the kitchen, frying eggs and Boca-sausage, when Thiai came to him. They were both next to naked, the honeymoon was barely over and just starting. He was wearing a bathrobe because the oven was the only heating whoever built the apartment had thought to install. She wasn't wearing anything because she said she loved the way his eyes widened when she walked into a room.
Sometimes he asked her if she got cold. She would often smile, her head tilting to the side, one eye closing in an almost wink, and say 'yes, but I like the cold'. But sometimes she would just nod silently, her face almost blank, and he knew that he had somewhere crossed some line from asking about her clothing habits to asking about her mood. So he would hug her, and hope that it was enough -- and often it was -- and wonder if sometime far down the road when they'd had children and raised them and were comfortably old together he'd understand her complex feelings. He doubted it.
"Bruce," she said. "You were right."
"What?" Where did that come from? Has she ever said that to you? I don't think so. You? No...
This was a break in the shown and accepted pattern of interaction for two reasons: first, Thiai was never wrong. Even Bruce knew this, though occasionally he had to be reminded of it. They would argue over something so small neither of them really cared about it -- it was winning that mattered, the victory not the battle -- and he would be right but somehow, somewhere in there they would get turned around and she would be right and he would apologize and they would stand there after the shouting was over, like exhausted boxers embracing each other in the center of the ring. Then they would kiss -- long and passionate, always -- and often they would make love, rutting like happy animals in heat, sealing their cessation of hostilities.
Second, Bruce had heard her coming. Bruce never heard Thiai enter a room, only saw her. It was generally enough for him. He had been to at least one party where she silenced the room with her noiseless sinewy walk. Half cat, half wind blown grass, all goddess of the dance. He had called it her lioness walk on the drunken laughing night when they first had rough glorious sex on the balcony of a university frathouse -- before the cheating and the break-up and the re-discovery.
"Bruce. Love. You were right and I lied to you."
"What are you saying? I'm not..."
"You were right, every time you wondered and forgot. Its not real."
"What isn't..?" You know.
# # # # #
[Undefinable Timeframe]. This is a Dream.
It RUSHES UP roaring like a freight train and its mouth is full of sharpened stakes, dripping orange blood and red blood and green blood! And it says something that you can't hear, because your wife who isn't human is telling you that DREAMS AND REALITY HAVE JUST SWITCHED PLACES...
# # # # #
"Oh."
“Oh GOD!"
"It is what you've always known, my love. Its what you always were and what you learned/became. It is illusion/untruth. And I birthed it...
See...
Bruce stood with Thiai, naked on the side of a snow blanketed mountain wrapped in a howling blizzard. In front of him the mountain sheered away, dropping thousands of feet in a bare rock cliff-face to a deep valley where patches of green were visible through the snow. On the other side of the valley another mountain, or perhaps another extension of this mountain shot up hundreds of feet into the sky and then abruptly plateaued. Metal, bizarrely hued and alien, jutted out of the plateau at a steep angle. Bruce gasped as the cold snatched the breath away from him. He doubled over, hugging himself and shivering uncontrollably.
And watched some massive reptilian monster tore into the alien structure on the far side of the valley.
See that it is you must sentence/bless/kill. Learn what it is you must know/become. The Rage/prize/god/weapon/downfall is incubating inside you. Reach/look to down/inward. Reach/learn/become and rise to rage/conquer. It does not have to end like that.
# # # # #
12 MEMORY LOSS
"What we found was completely surprising. If you recall [an] event... you increase susceptibility to misinformation. Recalling something, actually enhances your ability to learn misinformation." ~ Jason Chan, psychologist
I don't remember much after that. I remember her talking to me, yes. And I remember my... anger. At her. At myself for believing her. At the world. It was both reasonable and irrational, alien and terrifyingly comfortable.
What did you do?
I think I tried to kill her, grabbing her around the neck and twisting like a madman. For some reason her skin was incredibly hard and her voice was very loud in the back of my skull. She told me that the green thing, the abomination on the other hill, was who I should be angry at. She told me that our love could have gone on forever if not for its intervention. She told me that I had the tools inside me to deal with it, to kill it, if only I reached for them...
And then?
And then she said she could show me how. She touched my temples with four hands and sixteen fingers. She whispered as I saw the change approach, the tools appear: sleeping far below me, their mouths full of sharpened stakes, curled in a cavern of green that moved with my heartbeat. Then it starts at the root of my psyche...
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hey guys. I never liked the Hulk. No, wait, that's way to dramatic (which is something you guys know I'm not) plus it makes me look like JJ Abrams (who you guys know I'm not). I actually love the Hulk. I think he is one of the greatest archetypal herothings since Batman. I think he's the ultimate symbol of the way progress can destroy us, turning us into something we aren't. Which is of course why I'm screwing with him royally. I have a plan for this dude and right now I'm feeling very protective and loving toward him, mainly because next issue he gets raped.
But first, I apologize for the lateness of this, my second issue. I picked exactly the wrong time to try to write FanFic. No sooner had I started this thing than a perfect storm of family and school and work whipped up. I expect the next issue will take less time to write and will be extremely short. I think I'll post it on Twitter or something and just send the Editors a link.
Oh, and I was planning to answer some feedback right here, but as the issue got later and later I just said, "screw that, I'll be mysterious like Alan Moore and they'll think I'm the mostest cleverest bastard ever!" So you guys get no letter page simulacrum. That said, however, I'm gonna get back to that one guy who wrote that one thing about not understanding why I put the bipolar fight scenes at the beginning of the last issue. Dude, they were just there to make the thing longer. I was feeling lazy. Read the issue before it. Its pretty gosh-darn good.