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Issue #6 by Alan Strauss (Volume 1)
March 2012 |
Now.
The Negative Zone. Abandoned military outpost.
…which leads me to the curious conclusion that it does not exist because it cannot exist. The laws of physics governing life as we understand it are negated by its very makeup. That is why I labeled it the Negative Zone, and would consider it an entirely metaphysical construct, only how can I square that with the fact I’ve also felt its physical truth with my own two hands? - Prof. Reed Richards on Discovery: Beyond the Science of the Real, 1997, never aired.
…I can see a little, yes. Mostly just shapes, the outline of the fire’s light, little flashes of color…my eyes do seem to be improving, actually. No, no, please, don’t apologize for the lack of food. A cup of warm broth is more than I have any right to expect from you. I don’t know how you found your way to this place, stranger, but you’ve been a Godsend. Frankly, I feel guilty taking even this much from you when I all I have to offer in return is my feeble story. Feeble, inscrutable, insane… I know that, believe me, I do. How could I expect anyone to make sense of it all when I was there and still can’t explain half of it. That’s my life though. Always on the outside somehow, trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw back together.
But you still want me to finish? Alright. I’ll try. I will. I owe you that. There’s not much more to tell though. There’s no one left but him now, anyways. Always him in the end. Always…
The Incredible Hulk in...
The Negative Zone. Abandoned military outpost.
…which leads me to the curious conclusion that it does not exist because it cannot exist. The laws of physics governing life as we understand it are negated by its very makeup. That is why I labeled it the Negative Zone, and would consider it an entirely metaphysical construct, only how can I square that with the fact I’ve also felt its physical truth with my own two hands? - Prof. Reed Richards on Discovery: Beyond the Science of the Real, 1997, never aired.
…I can see a little, yes. Mostly just shapes, the outline of the fire’s light, little flashes of color…my eyes do seem to be improving, actually. No, no, please, don’t apologize for the lack of food. A cup of warm broth is more than I have any right to expect from you. I don’t know how you found your way to this place, stranger, but you’ve been a Godsend. Frankly, I feel guilty taking even this much from you when I all I have to offer in return is my feeble story. Feeble, inscrutable, insane… I know that, believe me, I do. How could I expect anyone to make sense of it all when I was there and still can’t explain half of it. That’s my life though. Always on the outside somehow, trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw back together.
But you still want me to finish? Alright. I’ll try. I will. I owe you that. There’s not much more to tell though. There’s no one left but him now, anyways. Always him in the end. Always…
The Incredible Hulk in...
“RAGE: Part Three – 2000 Light years From Home”
Infinity.
The Beginning/End of Time and Space. A rehearsal hall for the Celestial Chorus of Kraii. AKA, smoking ruins.
Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk…[edited for brevity]
Crystal floors cracked, walls fashioned from panes of variegated glass shattered, columns of the purest white stained with viscera and an alien blood more vibrant than any earthly red. A deconstruction of millennia or perhaps just minutes. Impossible to measure in a place where time itself had yet to be conceived as afterthought to mortality. But the scope of the destruction, that at least required no special metric, for it was vast, all-encompassing. The encroachment of chaos, pervasive and eternal, was so near now that it could be felt, a film that coated all things and hazed the perceptions.
Even he could feel it as he crouched among the elemental ruins, nostrils flared, body encrusted with the sticky pulp of his enemies and the crumbling dust of their creations. Enemies was a strange phrase to use, one he would embrace without hesitation, but others might blanch from, as there had been no battle, no resistance, as he hammered their fragile structures to the firmament. Not even when he took to directing his inexhaustible rage on their bodies -- tearing, squeezing, biting until the very last voice had gone silent in strangled gasps.
Their song had been quieted at last. It had ceased to snake its way up the tower’s fluted spires and unleash its poisonous life on the formless universe. Or had it? The Hulk tensed, the muscles of its grotesque physicality rippling across taut skin, and listened. Somewhere above him rose a solitary note, small and delicate yet persistent.
Rage! He clenched his fists until his palms bled anew. He howled aloud at such betrayal. Nothing could deny Hulk’s wrath. Nothing would.
So he began to move again, stalking from chamber to chamber like some great primordial predator, his eyes small and probing, mouth a feral grimace of jagged tearing teeth. He bounded up stairs so narrow that the already crumbling walls cracked and sagged at his passing. Where doors stood so bold as to dare block his path, they were crushed under implacable force.
Soon he found it. It stood on a small pedestal near the top of the spire. Delicate and small as the others, smaller in fact, a child perhaps, if such things existed in this timeless era. Its six arms lay folded across its tiny chest as it raised its voice to the heavens. Expressive eyes gazed out at Hulk through thick lashes, murky, blue, and ineffably sad, and most galling of all without a trace of hatred.
The Hulk snarled and reached for its scrawny throat.
# # # # #
8 Hours Ago.
Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. The left frontal lobe, mainly.
Okay, come on, really though, be fair. Why should I have to feel guilty? What did I ever do that was so wrong? I obeyed the rules, I contributed to society, I paid my bills on time, I did what I was supposed to do. And I was trying to save a life that day, remember? I’m a good person. I am. It’s not my fault.
She arched her back under cascading waters, beads of moisture tracing tiny rivulets along soft inviting curves. His hands lay gently on her wide hips, her warm wet flesh pressed intimately against his own. It sickened him.
Well, no, actually, it didn’t. The body didn’t quite work that way, did it? Or the mind. Or the body within the mind. Whatever. The point is, he was growing frustrated with these deceptions. He was well past the point of being titillated into distraction. He’d torn his way through considerably more elaborate illusions to reach this point. Maybe that was a sign that Thiai was getting desperate. To repeat herself.
Or maybe it was just further proof that she held him in contempt.
“No, enough. Really, enough. These games have to end, Thiai. I know what’s going on out there.”
“Do you, brcbnnr? Do you really?”
Okay. So maybe he didn’t actually know what was going on out there, not specifically, not in such a way he could construct a five point essay on it. He did know that the Hulk was at the root of it though. That Thiai was using him somehow. Fulfilling an ancient prophecy of her people that ended in The End. A finis to life in the universe or something equally grave.
“You ignore the other simpler explanation for all this. That you’re mad. That Bruce Banner is sitting in a hospital ward somewhere on Earth imagining all these things, wrapped in stained sheets and drooling.”
“We’ve already gone through that scenario, remember? I’m not crazy, or if I am, it doesn’t matter. I still have to deal with you. I still have to deal with the Hulk.”
Bruce stepped away from one fantasy and directly into a green vista of rolling hills and spring flowers in full blossom. He recognized it. That time up in Connecticut. Now it was Thiai reclining topless on a bright orange beach towel, head propped in the palm of her third arm, not shy and self-conscious as Betty had been, but brazen. Another of his memories being desecrated.
“You persist in saying that even now? He isn’t your fault. Yes, you can slay him…but why? What out there that is better than what’s in here? I am not trying to play the role of temptress. This is not a religious morality play.”
“Says the one who labels herself a prophetess.”
“I’m speaking of your dilemma not my mission. They are two different things that only seem to overlap. The Hulk is not your fault. Those are your own thoughts not mine. I merely borrow them from the well worn scripts of your mind.”
“But you’re fueling its rage with my memories, my emotions, using it to destroy, to kill…God knows how many this time. An entire civilization? A universe?”
“Not destruction, brcbnnr. Prevention. Making certain it never was in the first place. View it as a removal of a great mistake by arrogant gods too blind and careless to see the flaws in their creation. The pain, the confusion, the pointlessness of life in an uncaring universe. Who knows this better than you? How can you deny these words? You who hide from your life every day of it and are right to do so. I give you escape even as your creature gives it to us all.”
“No more talking. You’re still trying to distract me, to keep me from finding it…”
She laughed as the scene faded yet again. Graduation ceremony. Thiai handing him his diploma. Applause and admiration. Another jump. Now standing before the thesis committee presenting his paper, genuine respect evident on all their faces, Thiai among their numbers, encouraging him to embrace these fleeting moments of pride in a life so scant in them. He ignored the temptation to linger there and pushed on instead, deeper into the recesses of his memories, searching, hunting, not at all unlike the maddened beast above.
“How can I keep you from finding anything? I do not even exist. When the Hulk killed the last of my peoples’ progenitors so too did we their children fade from the time stream. All these thoughts are your own. You hear them because they are the truth as you know it to be.”
Ignore her, he told himself. She’d placed something in his mind of that much he was certain. Some kind of block that kept him from reaching the Hulk, a lingering psychic imprint from which she continued to invade his thoughts even in her absence. He had to find it, assuming he could even recognize it, and then remove it. That was only way he could put an end to the Hulk’s rampage and assert control again.
“But you can’t control it. You never could. Why deceive yourself?”
Now she was lying. Thiai had said the exact opposite not so long ago.* That the Hulk existed because he allowed it to exist. Maybe she was growing desperate, after all. That must mean he was getting closer, that the further he progressed into his own past…
* (See last issue. Yes, I’m pretending this all fits together seamlessly. - Al)
…and of course. Of course. Where would someone or thing be able hide in the muddle of his own mind? Only in those dark corners he refused to visit. Only in…
# # # # #
He enveloped the home like a storm, preceded by the same kind of pregnant silence, full of dreadful anticipation, whenever his truck pulled up the driveway. Sometimes it broke gently, a little wind and rain from which the sun emerged brighter than before, and then Bruce would wonder why he’d worried at all. Other times his father crashed through that door with a darkness and fury so intense that it tore loose everything in its path and left a shamble of their lives.
This was somewhere in the middle and that was bad enough.
“…assholes talk to me like that. Do they realize what I do around there? I’ve more fucking brains than the lot of them put together.”
Bruce knew such muttering was a bad sign. His father hated his job and the people he called his co-workers. They treated him unfairly, didn’t appreciate his work, laughed at him behind his back. That’s what he always claimed, and young Bruce resented them every bit as much as his father because of the foul moods they put him in.
“Christ, what is this? Where’s your mother?” He shook his head as his father stormed through the living room. He could hear him rummaging through the kitchen, retrieving one of his special cans from the refrigerator, what he sometimes called his ‘nerve tonic’ with a smile suggesting great wit.
“No dinner, of course. Out with her lazy friends, no doubt.” He tore the tab off his can and then looked at Bruce. “And who’s watching you? Nobody, I guess. And…what are you playing with, anyways?” His father reached for his scrawny throat the toy he was holding and jerked it out of his hand. “Dolls? Is my own son playing with a goddamn doll now?”
Bruce wanted to explain that it wasn’t a doll. It was a Howling Commando action figure, for boys, it said as much on the box. So it wasn’t, he wasn’t…but no words seemed capable of forming in his mouth, not under the accusing glare of his father, with his large bony knuckles and breath that always smelled sour. He sat mute and afraid. As always.
“I guess so then. Ought to have Rebecca put you in a little pink dress, get it done with, quit pretending I’m raising a son who isn’t going to be a walking embarrassment.”
He began to cry even though he knew that was the wrong choice. His mother might show sympathy but it only ever made his father angrier. So he tried to hold it in, tried to keep his emotions at bay, which only made it worse.
“What, are you gonna start bawling again, little girl? Someone stole your dolly? Better cry for your worthless mommy to come save you.”
His father always had to talk about his mother that way. He hated him, he hated him so much, and something inside him broke, not entirely, not all right then, but just a little. Enough to make him rise up despite himself and strike his father with his balled up fists.
He responded by shoving Bruce effortlessly aside, his head striking the corner of the footstool. He wailed anew and frightened his father just enough that he threw the toy down and jerked him around to see if he was bleeding. Once he was certain that no permanent physical damage had been done, he let him go, and wandered sullenly back to the kitchen.
“That’s it, boy. Get angry. Show some balls. That’s the only way you’re going to get anywhere in life. Get angry, get…”
The scene grew fuzzy as the intensity of the memory passed. Bruce became aware of himself, no longer a part of the moment, but again an observer. He remembered this day. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to do so. These were times he did not care to ever revisit.
“And why should you?” Thiai asked him, the molded plastic head of Sgt. Fury taking on her own alien features. “Why would anyone wish to bask in this pain, this humiliation, this ugly symptom of the disease we call existence? Is this what you want? This life?”
He shook his head. It really was too awful. It was unlivable, the scars as fresh and sore as if these things had happened to him only yesterday. To look upon them was to bring all that fear and hate and anxiety back into his heart. He couldn’t deal with them. He didn’t want to deal with them. Better to push them away, to flee to higher ground, to find somewhere safer to hide, and…
“Yes,” he answered, startling himself with the strength of his voice. “Yes! I do. I embrace it. The pain of life, the pain of my life. The good and the bad both. I choose life over the solace of your empty world, Thiai.”
I am this child.
I am Bruce Banner.
I am the Hulk.
I am…
# # # # #
Infinity.
Upon an Ocean of Harmony. Floating amongst the corpses of creation.
You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs/Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs/Well, it seems to me you’ve seen too much in too few years/And though you’ve tried, you just can't hide, your eyes are edged with tears/You better stop,
look around, here it comes… - 19th Nervous Breakdown, Rolling Stones
His hands began to wrap themselves around the child, the only sounds audible its song and the pounding of his own pulse. Just one squeeze and its neck would crack like porcelain. One squeeze, and then maybe another, and another, until the stringy stuff of its body was…was…
The Hulk froze. His face contorted as he lurched backwards. A pain unlike anything he’d felt before had just shot through his body. He growled and lunged again. The pain immediately struck once more, a physical blow that sent him writhing to the ground in a primal shriek, his body contorting in paroxysms of agony. And slowly the rage gave way to confusion and perhaps fear, and then even those disappeared.
In place of the great beast a man now lay shivering on the cold marble. His breathing was shallow and he gazed at the strangeness surrounding him in bewilderment. He could not remember how he got here or why, although some of that would return to him in the coming hours. For the moment all he knew for certain was that he was far from home in a place he did not belong.
Two hands, soft and gentle, cupped his chin and turned his head. He found himself gazing into an alien face strange yet somehow soothing at the same time. It was singing and its voice was beautiful beyond description. A bright light flowed from around him, and the man was forced to close his eyes unless they burn up and simply listen to its song and the bewitching complexity of its notes. At once triumphant and sad, they lifted him up and carried onward into whatever waited in the world beyond the tower’s walls.
# # # # #
Now.
Negative Zone. Abandoned military outpost.
I feel much better now. I really do. - Hal 9000, Space Odyssey 2001
“I don’t remember much after that. Just waking up here, half-dehydrated, doubting my own sanity, and of course meeting you..”
Bruce Banner slumped before the fire with a weariness that felt marrow deep. It was good to finally unburden himself. To explain events somehow made them seem realer and, perhaps more importantly, brought a sense of closure to his journey. Sipping the last of the broth, he placed the tin cup aside and gazed across the fire towards the hazy outline of his sole audience.
“I have to thank you again for your kind assistance. You still haven’t told me your name…”
Over the crackling flames, he heard the man carefully shifting his position. He was large, Bruce already knew that much. He could tell by the heaviness of his breathing and the thick silhouette of his body. Too thick, in fact, although he was willing to chalk that impression up to his still poor eyesight and the darkness of the room. The sibilant hiss that preceded the stranger’s response at once jerked his mind in another dreadful direction.
“You don’t have to thank me Banner. Coming across you again in this state is thanks enough.”
“You know me…”
The man chuckled, a raspy inhuman chortling that expanded from deep within its chest. “Oh, yes, all too well. In fact, I was starting to worry you were truly gone for good. Bad enough those freaks dragged us here after making us bash our heads in. But to leave me behind? They take the Hulk back to their world but not me? I should be offended, I think.”
And then he knew. Bruce vaguely recalled their battle atop the Himalayas from his frayed memories. It was a trial run, the aliens testing their control, and apparently the Hulk had passed with flying colors. Battered and bruised, the combatants’ bodies were then placed in stasis to heal while Thiai guided her people’s Timeraft here, an abandoned installation on the outskirts of the Negative Zone. Upon arrival they’d opened a portal to their own universe and took the Hulk with them. The ultimate weapon.
For the penultimate, however, they had no further use. Him they left behind.
“Blonsky. It’s you, isn’t it? I recognize your voice now.”
“He recognizes me at last! How nice. I recognize him right away though. How I begin to miss my old sparring partner. That was quite a walloping you gave me! I thought I should die. So did they. Perhaps that is why they left me here. Tossed me aside. Always second best, yes?” Emil’s voice remained buoyant as before but Banner could hear the anger licking at the edges. “It is too bad I was denied the chance to show them the error of their thinking but…well, no point in holding a grudge against the dead when the living are so readily at hand.”
Bruce understood the threat for it was and a bolt of panic shot through him. It just as quickly subsided. His situation was hopeless. He couldn’t see and couldn’t run. Even walking was beyond him at this point. He was simply too weak. He was at Blonsky’s mercy.
“What are you going to do?”
More hideous slavering laughter, its owner now dispensing with even the semblance of humanity. His words came in a rush of animal snarls that made them ever harder to decipher.
“What am I not going to do is what you should be asking! Do you know what I’ve been living on these last few months? Ha, neither do I! Eating whatever I could find to survive, biding my time, waiting for just one more day, just in case… And fortunately it pays off. I get you. A little skinny perhaps but beggars can’t be choosers, eh? Of course that is for later when we are done. First we have fun.”
Bruce could now feel Blonsky’s warm breath beating against his face. He must have sidled up beside him while they spoke.
“Tell me,” he whispered, “do I start by removing one piece at a time, an ear, a finger, a foot perhaps, or do I do them all at once? Which do you think? Tell me. Tell me!”
“Why would want to torture me, Emil?” Reasoning. He had to try reasoning. That was his forte. He was still Bruce Banner after all. “It’s the Hulk you hate and I don’t think he’s part of me anymore! I no longer hear the voices. He’s gone. I really do think he’s gone this time!”
“This is good for you, but how is it good for me? My wrongs deserve redress do they not? Someone must pay. If not him, then you. They are the same thing anyways. Close enough.”
“But I could help you!” His voice sounded pleading, desperate, he knew that, but this was madness. After all he’d been through to end it here in the middle of nowhere for a stupid rivalry that meant nothing to him personally. “We could work together to get out of here and back to Earth. You have no grudge against me!”
“I have a grudge against everyone! I’m the fucking Abomination, remember?”
Bruce could feel claws tearing into his flesh before they even descended. This must be what it was like to be a victim of the Hulk’s wrath. Frightened, confused, and helpless before so much raw power and senseless anger. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe this was justice in a way. So long as it was quick, so long as he didn’t linger…
But he did linger. Not in pain though. In anticipation of pain. One that never came as he suddenly realized he could no longer sense the Abomination’s presence. He did, however, hear movement nearby and then suddenly a cacophony of sound. Shooting, shouting, explosions. He smelt smoke and burning flesh.
Then just as quickly all became quiet again. The fire had died to embers. He could see nothing but darkness.
“Hello?” he called into the void. “Is anyone there? Can someone hear me?”
A hand grasped his shoulder, large and firm, but undeniably human. Familiar even.
“Been looking for you, son. Time to come home.”
Blackness descended.
# # # # #
After Now.
SHIELD-ADL (Airborne Deployable Laboratory).
“Isn’t that just it though? A complete abdication of personal responsibility. Nothing is anybody’s fault. Typical liberal bullshit. You morph into the Jolly Green Giant and level a city…hey, nobody made you do that. That’s a choice.” - General Thaddeus E. ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, interview, The Hype w/ Jackson Orizio, available online
He woke up in a hospital bed although not a proper hospital. For one the room had portholes instead windows and outside he could see clouds scudding rapidly past. And when the nurse in her pristine blue scrubs saw he was awake she did not go to get the doctor. She went to get the General.
The familiar glowering face of Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross now hovered above him as the nurse checked his eyes by shining a bright light in them. He looked unusually satisfied, a foreign expression on his weathered old features. Bruce couldn’t help feeling more than a little uncomfortable, even if the man had technically saved his life. They were far from friends.
“…been laying in bed the last three days. The medics say you’ll be alright in time. Some kind of tearing on the retinas but that’s been fixed surgically while you were out. Probably see better than you ever did. All on the country’s dime, I don’t doubt. Still, you’re a resilient bastard, aren’t you? Lucky too, given that we found you before your friend had his way.” He seemed to reconsider that statement as soon as he spoke it. “Somewhat lucky, anyways.”
“You mean you weren’t looking for me?”
“For once, no. We’ve had our own problems since you went missing. You might have noticed the absence of Agents Pratt and Eve.”
“Actually, I was wondering when you were going to drag them in here. Not with any great anticipation mind you…”
Ross didn’t smile. He never did. Once many years ago he’d told Bruce that sarcasm was the weapon of a weak man. It was a habit he’d never managed to shake though. Would that it had remained his only weapon.
“You can rest easy on that account. They were merely using you as a means to get close to our operations. The goal all along was to infect our systems with something they called the Nano-Virus. Not sure who they were working for, maybe HYDRA, but the plan as we gather it was to assume control over the Hulkbuster unit. Needless to say that’d be a lot of dangerous firepower in the hands of a terrorist faction.”
“But they failed?”
“Of course. SHIELD and the U. S. military don’t produce many fools. Not at this level. We had overrides installed. Well hidden ones and off the record, of course. That was the point of that little installation you were hiding in. An idea that Reed Richards cooked up, and we were supposedly the only two people who knew about its existence. Meaning I should probably ask what you were doing out there…”
The nurse finished her check-up and exited without so much as a perfunctory smile. SHIELD too probably. Bruce sighed. He knew before he said it how this was going to sound.
“The aliens that kidnapped me, or the Hulk, whatever, I think they used it as some kind of launching platform back to their own universe. Although their ship was capable of moving through the fourth dimension, it was obviously unable to permeate the barriers between realities without assistance. Whether they found the installation by chance or if their equipment detected it, I don’t know, but the tech Richards had stowed there apparently fit their needs…”
Ross scowled. “…but fortunately I know better than to ask, as I’d just end up with some cock and bull story like that. I swear you eggheads are all more trouble than you’re worth. Richards swore that location was secure. Should have known better. Now we’ll have to decommission it. More taxpayer money down the drain.”
“It did serve its purpose though. It allowed you to keep Pratt from reprogramming your military hardware, right? I’d say that’s one for the eggheads over the muscleheads, actually.”
“Except the Hulkbuster tech wouldn’t even exist if not for you Banner. But personal responsibility has never been your strong suit has it?”
“That’s not fair, Ross, and you know it. I never asked to be hunted like an animal. I never wanted the Hulk.”
“Neither did we. But we got him, just the same. And unlike you we do what we have to in order to deal with it. Which is why you’ll be joining Pratt and Eve in permanent solitary confinement. A nice comfy cell in an undisclosed location of our choice.”
Bruce tried to stand up but he was still too weak from his recent ordeal. “Ross, wait. Listen to me. I don’t think I’m the Hulk anymore. I was trying to tell Blonsky the same thing but I don’t think he much cared either way. Whatever the aliens did, the Hulks aren’t in me anymore. Their voices are gone, I don’t feel that same…”
He didn’t quite how to explain it. A crowdedness to his psyche as though he was constantly battling to keep a grip on his own mind. That was no longer present. He felt himself for the first time in many years. But how could he explain that to Ross? The skepticism was writ large on his face.
“I’ve heard it before, Banner. And I tell you what, if twenty years from now you haven’t turned into a homicidal green monster again, we’ll repeat this conversation. Until then, you’ll be sedated for the rest of the trip and probably for the foreseeable future after that.”
“Ross listen to me! Damn it, don’t just walk away! It’s unjust to lock me up without even hearing me out, without even trying to find out if what I’m saying is true.”
The General merely shook his head as he approached the room’s reinforced door and buzzed himself out. A phalanx of armed Hulkbuster guards awaited him in the hallway. They had been stationed there as Banner’s constant surveillance ever since his arrival.
“Consider it a vacation. For all of us. I’m not taking any more chances with you. Your little rampages are finished one way or the other. The next time you see the light of day you’ll be too old to be a threat to anyone. Goodbye, Banner. Have a good long rest.”
# # # # #
A few moments later General Ross stepped into his own private quarters. The ADL was still on-course to their secluded destination, ATA one hour fifteen minutes. The pilots would see to landing it safely. From there most of the work would fall to the installation staff. Ross would stick round for the first few months to make certain all the security protocols were being followed. Once that was done…
He reached into his private humidor and selected a thick cigar. The air filtration immediately kicked on as he lit it. Banner could never be taken at face value of course -- a coward is a liar by nature -- but what if he was right? Could the Hulk be finished? Even if that proved an overly optimistic assessment, they had the know-how and technology to hold him on location once properly secured. The medics and their pharmaceuticals would make sure Banner never had a cogent thought or genuine emotional experience again. Sedated and effectively on ice, the threat he represented would be eliminated, one way or other.
It was victory. A strange one, admittedly. Ross always thought it might end in a climactic battle. A throw down between the two of them in which his superior tactics and discipline would ultimately prevail. To luck upon Banner after some interfering aliens had done all his work for him didn’t taste right.
You should be satisfied, he told himself. You did your job. But even the cigar, one of the few pleasures he allowed himself, hung like wet cardboard in his mouth.
“General Ross, sir, are you there?”
He touched the comm pad next to his desk. “Present. Report.”
“I don’t know how to say this…I mean…I’m not sure…”
Panic. Uncertainty. Already Ross’s back felt a little straighter.
“Calm down, soldier. Just tell me what happened.”
“He’s…escaped. He’s gone…”
Ross discarded his cigar in the ashtray. Banner. Of course. Of course.
“I’ll be right there. Inform SHIELD that we’ll require an additional heavy strike force ASAP. Send them the exact coordinates from where the Hulk jumped ship. And if there’s a breach in the hull, we’ll need to--”
“No, sir, that’s just it. He didn’t break out. He just disappeared. No one has been in or out of his room.”
“Explain yourself. People don’t just disappear.”
“I know that, sir, but I swear that is what happened. He was sitting up in bed, demanding an audience with you, and then…”
“Go on.”
“He stopped, sir. He seemed like he was speaking to someone else for a brief moment but there was no one in the room with him. Then a second later he was gone. Just…gone.”
Russ rubbed his temples. Three days, eight hours, fifteen minutes had passed since capture and somehow he’d already lost his quarry yet again. To who or what currently unknown. One thing was clear though and that’s where he’d have to start.
“Very well. Put a science team together, I’ll want a complete diagnostic on everything that happened in that room. In the meantime, notify the Pentagon. Bruce Banner is at large, presumed to be threat level omega. The Hulkbuster unit is active and on his trail. We will apprehend. And let the crew know… The hunt is back on, gentlemen.”
THE END
Author Notes:
…and I thought my Fantastic Four run took forever to wrap-up! This is a six issue story that required three writers and nearly twice as many years to complete. Lacking any kind of guiding script, I just made up an ending I thought acceptable, so don’t blame the previous writers for the sketchiness of the above story. That surely wasn’t their plan and my real goal was less to entertain than to tie-up loose ends and get Hulk back in usable condition again.
Still, I do hope you found a little enjoyment in the execution. I at least had fun messing around with the atypical format Micah used for his scene breaks. I hope that should he ever see it that he doesn’t mind too much. I’d have loved to see his final issues myself but in their absence…well, this will have to suffice for an ending.
But what kind of ending exactly? Where did Banner go? Is he still the Hulk? Those are questions in part for the next writer to answer but they’re answers that M2K regular Dale Glaser already has some very solid ideas on. He was good enough to help me brainstorm up solutions to some of the Hulk’s stray plot threads as well as suggest the detour that final scene takes. Why? Because he has some plans of his own for the Hulk. As for what those might involve, well, that’ll have to remain a Secret for now…
Finally, you may note this issue was labeled Rage: Part Six, whereas Micah ended on Rage: Part Two. Whither the other parts? Hard to say. Just the sort of thing that happens when you start mucking around with Timerafts, the Negative Zone, and the fabric of the universe! Actually, I made writing a believable (?!?) conclusion my only real goal with this issue, so I just cut right to it, and allowed for a number of events to happen off-screen in those un-chronicled parts. You can piece them together through the dialogue and exposition if you want. Probably not the best approach but any story that’s been through this many writers and interpretations is unlikely to be a thing of beauty. The point is it shambled across the finish line and all’s well that ends with a Hulk once again available for M2K writers to use. It’ll all look nice enough in the archive, I suspect, and even nicer when we’ve got a brand new Hulk series going strong on the site.
So…quit wasting time on my meanderings and get working on that proposal why don’t you?
Thanks for reading.
-Alan
The Beginning/End of Time and Space. A rehearsal hall for the Celestial Chorus of Kraii. AKA, smoking ruins.
Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk smash! Hulk…[edited for brevity]
Crystal floors cracked, walls fashioned from panes of variegated glass shattered, columns of the purest white stained with viscera and an alien blood more vibrant than any earthly red. A deconstruction of millennia or perhaps just minutes. Impossible to measure in a place where time itself had yet to be conceived as afterthought to mortality. But the scope of the destruction, that at least required no special metric, for it was vast, all-encompassing. The encroachment of chaos, pervasive and eternal, was so near now that it could be felt, a film that coated all things and hazed the perceptions.
Even he could feel it as he crouched among the elemental ruins, nostrils flared, body encrusted with the sticky pulp of his enemies and the crumbling dust of their creations. Enemies was a strange phrase to use, one he would embrace without hesitation, but others might blanch from, as there had been no battle, no resistance, as he hammered their fragile structures to the firmament. Not even when he took to directing his inexhaustible rage on their bodies -- tearing, squeezing, biting until the very last voice had gone silent in strangled gasps.
Their song had been quieted at last. It had ceased to snake its way up the tower’s fluted spires and unleash its poisonous life on the formless universe. Or had it? The Hulk tensed, the muscles of its grotesque physicality rippling across taut skin, and listened. Somewhere above him rose a solitary note, small and delicate yet persistent.
Rage! He clenched his fists until his palms bled anew. He howled aloud at such betrayal. Nothing could deny Hulk’s wrath. Nothing would.
So he began to move again, stalking from chamber to chamber like some great primordial predator, his eyes small and probing, mouth a feral grimace of jagged tearing teeth. He bounded up stairs so narrow that the already crumbling walls cracked and sagged at his passing. Where doors stood so bold as to dare block his path, they were crushed under implacable force.
Soon he found it. It stood on a small pedestal near the top of the spire. Delicate and small as the others, smaller in fact, a child perhaps, if such things existed in this timeless era. Its six arms lay folded across its tiny chest as it raised its voice to the heavens. Expressive eyes gazed out at Hulk through thick lashes, murky, blue, and ineffably sad, and most galling of all without a trace of hatred.
The Hulk snarled and reached for its scrawny throat.
# # # # #
8 Hours Ago.
Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. The left frontal lobe, mainly.
Okay, come on, really though, be fair. Why should I have to feel guilty? What did I ever do that was so wrong? I obeyed the rules, I contributed to society, I paid my bills on time, I did what I was supposed to do. And I was trying to save a life that day, remember? I’m a good person. I am. It’s not my fault.
She arched her back under cascading waters, beads of moisture tracing tiny rivulets along soft inviting curves. His hands lay gently on her wide hips, her warm wet flesh pressed intimately against his own. It sickened him.
Well, no, actually, it didn’t. The body didn’t quite work that way, did it? Or the mind. Or the body within the mind. Whatever. The point is, he was growing frustrated with these deceptions. He was well past the point of being titillated into distraction. He’d torn his way through considerably more elaborate illusions to reach this point. Maybe that was a sign that Thiai was getting desperate. To repeat herself.
Or maybe it was just further proof that she held him in contempt.
“No, enough. Really, enough. These games have to end, Thiai. I know what’s going on out there.”
“Do you, brcbnnr? Do you really?”
Okay. So maybe he didn’t actually know what was going on out there, not specifically, not in such a way he could construct a five point essay on it. He did know that the Hulk was at the root of it though. That Thiai was using him somehow. Fulfilling an ancient prophecy of her people that ended in The End. A finis to life in the universe or something equally grave.
“You ignore the other simpler explanation for all this. That you’re mad. That Bruce Banner is sitting in a hospital ward somewhere on Earth imagining all these things, wrapped in stained sheets and drooling.”
“We’ve already gone through that scenario, remember? I’m not crazy, or if I am, it doesn’t matter. I still have to deal with you. I still have to deal with the Hulk.”
Bruce stepped away from one fantasy and directly into a green vista of rolling hills and spring flowers in full blossom. He recognized it. That time up in Connecticut. Now it was Thiai reclining topless on a bright orange beach towel, head propped in the palm of her third arm, not shy and self-conscious as Betty had been, but brazen. Another of his memories being desecrated.
“You persist in saying that even now? He isn’t your fault. Yes, you can slay him…but why? What out there that is better than what’s in here? I am not trying to play the role of temptress. This is not a religious morality play.”
“Says the one who labels herself a prophetess.”
“I’m speaking of your dilemma not my mission. They are two different things that only seem to overlap. The Hulk is not your fault. Those are your own thoughts not mine. I merely borrow them from the well worn scripts of your mind.”
“But you’re fueling its rage with my memories, my emotions, using it to destroy, to kill…God knows how many this time. An entire civilization? A universe?”
“Not destruction, brcbnnr. Prevention. Making certain it never was in the first place. View it as a removal of a great mistake by arrogant gods too blind and careless to see the flaws in their creation. The pain, the confusion, the pointlessness of life in an uncaring universe. Who knows this better than you? How can you deny these words? You who hide from your life every day of it and are right to do so. I give you escape even as your creature gives it to us all.”
“No more talking. You’re still trying to distract me, to keep me from finding it…”
She laughed as the scene faded yet again. Graduation ceremony. Thiai handing him his diploma. Applause and admiration. Another jump. Now standing before the thesis committee presenting his paper, genuine respect evident on all their faces, Thiai among their numbers, encouraging him to embrace these fleeting moments of pride in a life so scant in them. He ignored the temptation to linger there and pushed on instead, deeper into the recesses of his memories, searching, hunting, not at all unlike the maddened beast above.
“How can I keep you from finding anything? I do not even exist. When the Hulk killed the last of my peoples’ progenitors so too did we their children fade from the time stream. All these thoughts are your own. You hear them because they are the truth as you know it to be.”
Ignore her, he told himself. She’d placed something in his mind of that much he was certain. Some kind of block that kept him from reaching the Hulk, a lingering psychic imprint from which she continued to invade his thoughts even in her absence. He had to find it, assuming he could even recognize it, and then remove it. That was only way he could put an end to the Hulk’s rampage and assert control again.
“But you can’t control it. You never could. Why deceive yourself?”
Now she was lying. Thiai had said the exact opposite not so long ago.* That the Hulk existed because he allowed it to exist. Maybe she was growing desperate, after all. That must mean he was getting closer, that the further he progressed into his own past…
* (See last issue. Yes, I’m pretending this all fits together seamlessly. - Al)
…and of course. Of course. Where would someone or thing be able hide in the muddle of his own mind? Only in those dark corners he refused to visit. Only in…
# # # # #
He enveloped the home like a storm, preceded by the same kind of pregnant silence, full of dreadful anticipation, whenever his truck pulled up the driveway. Sometimes it broke gently, a little wind and rain from which the sun emerged brighter than before, and then Bruce would wonder why he’d worried at all. Other times his father crashed through that door with a darkness and fury so intense that it tore loose everything in its path and left a shamble of their lives.
This was somewhere in the middle and that was bad enough.
“…assholes talk to me like that. Do they realize what I do around there? I’ve more fucking brains than the lot of them put together.”
Bruce knew such muttering was a bad sign. His father hated his job and the people he called his co-workers. They treated him unfairly, didn’t appreciate his work, laughed at him behind his back. That’s what he always claimed, and young Bruce resented them every bit as much as his father because of the foul moods they put him in.
“Christ, what is this? Where’s your mother?” He shook his head as his father stormed through the living room. He could hear him rummaging through the kitchen, retrieving one of his special cans from the refrigerator, what he sometimes called his ‘nerve tonic’ with a smile suggesting great wit.
“No dinner, of course. Out with her lazy friends, no doubt.” He tore the tab off his can and then looked at Bruce. “And who’s watching you? Nobody, I guess. And…what are you playing with, anyways?” His father reached for his scrawny throat the toy he was holding and jerked it out of his hand. “Dolls? Is my own son playing with a goddamn doll now?”
Bruce wanted to explain that it wasn’t a doll. It was a Howling Commando action figure, for boys, it said as much on the box. So it wasn’t, he wasn’t…but no words seemed capable of forming in his mouth, not under the accusing glare of his father, with his large bony knuckles and breath that always smelled sour. He sat mute and afraid. As always.
“I guess so then. Ought to have Rebecca put you in a little pink dress, get it done with, quit pretending I’m raising a son who isn’t going to be a walking embarrassment.”
He began to cry even though he knew that was the wrong choice. His mother might show sympathy but it only ever made his father angrier. So he tried to hold it in, tried to keep his emotions at bay, which only made it worse.
“What, are you gonna start bawling again, little girl? Someone stole your dolly? Better cry for your worthless mommy to come save you.”
His father always had to talk about his mother that way. He hated him, he hated him so much, and something inside him broke, not entirely, not all right then, but just a little. Enough to make him rise up despite himself and strike his father with his balled up fists.
He responded by shoving Bruce effortlessly aside, his head striking the corner of the footstool. He wailed anew and frightened his father just enough that he threw the toy down and jerked him around to see if he was bleeding. Once he was certain that no permanent physical damage had been done, he let him go, and wandered sullenly back to the kitchen.
“That’s it, boy. Get angry. Show some balls. That’s the only way you’re going to get anywhere in life. Get angry, get…”
The scene grew fuzzy as the intensity of the memory passed. Bruce became aware of himself, no longer a part of the moment, but again an observer. He remembered this day. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to do so. These were times he did not care to ever revisit.
“And why should you?” Thiai asked him, the molded plastic head of Sgt. Fury taking on her own alien features. “Why would anyone wish to bask in this pain, this humiliation, this ugly symptom of the disease we call existence? Is this what you want? This life?”
He shook his head. It really was too awful. It was unlivable, the scars as fresh and sore as if these things had happened to him only yesterday. To look upon them was to bring all that fear and hate and anxiety back into his heart. He couldn’t deal with them. He didn’t want to deal with them. Better to push them away, to flee to higher ground, to find somewhere safer to hide, and…
“Yes,” he answered, startling himself with the strength of his voice. “Yes! I do. I embrace it. The pain of life, the pain of my life. The good and the bad both. I choose life over the solace of your empty world, Thiai.”
I am this child.
I am Bruce Banner.
I am the Hulk.
I am…
# # # # #
Infinity.
Upon an Ocean of Harmony. Floating amongst the corpses of creation.
You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs/Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs/Well, it seems to me you’ve seen too much in too few years/And though you’ve tried, you just can't hide, your eyes are edged with tears/You better stop,
look around, here it comes… - 19th Nervous Breakdown, Rolling Stones
His hands began to wrap themselves around the child, the only sounds audible its song and the pounding of his own pulse. Just one squeeze and its neck would crack like porcelain. One squeeze, and then maybe another, and another, until the stringy stuff of its body was…was…
The Hulk froze. His face contorted as he lurched backwards. A pain unlike anything he’d felt before had just shot through his body. He growled and lunged again. The pain immediately struck once more, a physical blow that sent him writhing to the ground in a primal shriek, his body contorting in paroxysms of agony. And slowly the rage gave way to confusion and perhaps fear, and then even those disappeared.
In place of the great beast a man now lay shivering on the cold marble. His breathing was shallow and he gazed at the strangeness surrounding him in bewilderment. He could not remember how he got here or why, although some of that would return to him in the coming hours. For the moment all he knew for certain was that he was far from home in a place he did not belong.
Two hands, soft and gentle, cupped his chin and turned his head. He found himself gazing into an alien face strange yet somehow soothing at the same time. It was singing and its voice was beautiful beyond description. A bright light flowed from around him, and the man was forced to close his eyes unless they burn up and simply listen to its song and the bewitching complexity of its notes. At once triumphant and sad, they lifted him up and carried onward into whatever waited in the world beyond the tower’s walls.
# # # # #
Now.
Negative Zone. Abandoned military outpost.
I feel much better now. I really do. - Hal 9000, Space Odyssey 2001
“I don’t remember much after that. Just waking up here, half-dehydrated, doubting my own sanity, and of course meeting you..”
Bruce Banner slumped before the fire with a weariness that felt marrow deep. It was good to finally unburden himself. To explain events somehow made them seem realer and, perhaps more importantly, brought a sense of closure to his journey. Sipping the last of the broth, he placed the tin cup aside and gazed across the fire towards the hazy outline of his sole audience.
“I have to thank you again for your kind assistance. You still haven’t told me your name…”
Over the crackling flames, he heard the man carefully shifting his position. He was large, Bruce already knew that much. He could tell by the heaviness of his breathing and the thick silhouette of his body. Too thick, in fact, although he was willing to chalk that impression up to his still poor eyesight and the darkness of the room. The sibilant hiss that preceded the stranger’s response at once jerked his mind in another dreadful direction.
“You don’t have to thank me Banner. Coming across you again in this state is thanks enough.”
“You know me…”
The man chuckled, a raspy inhuman chortling that expanded from deep within its chest. “Oh, yes, all too well. In fact, I was starting to worry you were truly gone for good. Bad enough those freaks dragged us here after making us bash our heads in. But to leave me behind? They take the Hulk back to their world but not me? I should be offended, I think.”
And then he knew. Bruce vaguely recalled their battle atop the Himalayas from his frayed memories. It was a trial run, the aliens testing their control, and apparently the Hulk had passed with flying colors. Battered and bruised, the combatants’ bodies were then placed in stasis to heal while Thiai guided her people’s Timeraft here, an abandoned installation on the outskirts of the Negative Zone. Upon arrival they’d opened a portal to their own universe and took the Hulk with them. The ultimate weapon.
For the penultimate, however, they had no further use. Him they left behind.
“Blonsky. It’s you, isn’t it? I recognize your voice now.”
“He recognizes me at last! How nice. I recognize him right away though. How I begin to miss my old sparring partner. That was quite a walloping you gave me! I thought I should die. So did they. Perhaps that is why they left me here. Tossed me aside. Always second best, yes?” Emil’s voice remained buoyant as before but Banner could hear the anger licking at the edges. “It is too bad I was denied the chance to show them the error of their thinking but…well, no point in holding a grudge against the dead when the living are so readily at hand.”
Bruce understood the threat for it was and a bolt of panic shot through him. It just as quickly subsided. His situation was hopeless. He couldn’t see and couldn’t run. Even walking was beyond him at this point. He was simply too weak. He was at Blonsky’s mercy.
“What are you going to do?”
More hideous slavering laughter, its owner now dispensing with even the semblance of humanity. His words came in a rush of animal snarls that made them ever harder to decipher.
“What am I not going to do is what you should be asking! Do you know what I’ve been living on these last few months? Ha, neither do I! Eating whatever I could find to survive, biding my time, waiting for just one more day, just in case… And fortunately it pays off. I get you. A little skinny perhaps but beggars can’t be choosers, eh? Of course that is for later when we are done. First we have fun.”
Bruce could now feel Blonsky’s warm breath beating against his face. He must have sidled up beside him while they spoke.
“Tell me,” he whispered, “do I start by removing one piece at a time, an ear, a finger, a foot perhaps, or do I do them all at once? Which do you think? Tell me. Tell me!”
“Why would want to torture me, Emil?” Reasoning. He had to try reasoning. That was his forte. He was still Bruce Banner after all. “It’s the Hulk you hate and I don’t think he’s part of me anymore! I no longer hear the voices. He’s gone. I really do think he’s gone this time!”
“This is good for you, but how is it good for me? My wrongs deserve redress do they not? Someone must pay. If not him, then you. They are the same thing anyways. Close enough.”
“But I could help you!” His voice sounded pleading, desperate, he knew that, but this was madness. After all he’d been through to end it here in the middle of nowhere for a stupid rivalry that meant nothing to him personally. “We could work together to get out of here and back to Earth. You have no grudge against me!”
“I have a grudge against everyone! I’m the fucking Abomination, remember?”
Bruce could feel claws tearing into his flesh before they even descended. This must be what it was like to be a victim of the Hulk’s wrath. Frightened, confused, and helpless before so much raw power and senseless anger. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe this was justice in a way. So long as it was quick, so long as he didn’t linger…
But he did linger. Not in pain though. In anticipation of pain. One that never came as he suddenly realized he could no longer sense the Abomination’s presence. He did, however, hear movement nearby and then suddenly a cacophony of sound. Shooting, shouting, explosions. He smelt smoke and burning flesh.
Then just as quickly all became quiet again. The fire had died to embers. He could see nothing but darkness.
“Hello?” he called into the void. “Is anyone there? Can someone hear me?”
A hand grasped his shoulder, large and firm, but undeniably human. Familiar even.
“Been looking for you, son. Time to come home.”
Blackness descended.
# # # # #
After Now.
SHIELD-ADL (Airborne Deployable Laboratory).
“Isn’t that just it though? A complete abdication of personal responsibility. Nothing is anybody’s fault. Typical liberal bullshit. You morph into the Jolly Green Giant and level a city…hey, nobody made you do that. That’s a choice.” - General Thaddeus E. ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, interview, The Hype w/ Jackson Orizio, available online
He woke up in a hospital bed although not a proper hospital. For one the room had portholes instead windows and outside he could see clouds scudding rapidly past. And when the nurse in her pristine blue scrubs saw he was awake she did not go to get the doctor. She went to get the General.
The familiar glowering face of Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross now hovered above him as the nurse checked his eyes by shining a bright light in them. He looked unusually satisfied, a foreign expression on his weathered old features. Bruce couldn’t help feeling more than a little uncomfortable, even if the man had technically saved his life. They were far from friends.
“…been laying in bed the last three days. The medics say you’ll be alright in time. Some kind of tearing on the retinas but that’s been fixed surgically while you were out. Probably see better than you ever did. All on the country’s dime, I don’t doubt. Still, you’re a resilient bastard, aren’t you? Lucky too, given that we found you before your friend had his way.” He seemed to reconsider that statement as soon as he spoke it. “Somewhat lucky, anyways.”
“You mean you weren’t looking for me?”
“For once, no. We’ve had our own problems since you went missing. You might have noticed the absence of Agents Pratt and Eve.”
“Actually, I was wondering when you were going to drag them in here. Not with any great anticipation mind you…”
Ross didn’t smile. He never did. Once many years ago he’d told Bruce that sarcasm was the weapon of a weak man. It was a habit he’d never managed to shake though. Would that it had remained his only weapon.
“You can rest easy on that account. They were merely using you as a means to get close to our operations. The goal all along was to infect our systems with something they called the Nano-Virus. Not sure who they were working for, maybe HYDRA, but the plan as we gather it was to assume control over the Hulkbuster unit. Needless to say that’d be a lot of dangerous firepower in the hands of a terrorist faction.”
“But they failed?”
“Of course. SHIELD and the U. S. military don’t produce many fools. Not at this level. We had overrides installed. Well hidden ones and off the record, of course. That was the point of that little installation you were hiding in. An idea that Reed Richards cooked up, and we were supposedly the only two people who knew about its existence. Meaning I should probably ask what you were doing out there…”
The nurse finished her check-up and exited without so much as a perfunctory smile. SHIELD too probably. Bruce sighed. He knew before he said it how this was going to sound.
“The aliens that kidnapped me, or the Hulk, whatever, I think they used it as some kind of launching platform back to their own universe. Although their ship was capable of moving through the fourth dimension, it was obviously unable to permeate the barriers between realities without assistance. Whether they found the installation by chance or if their equipment detected it, I don’t know, but the tech Richards had stowed there apparently fit their needs…”
Ross scowled. “…but fortunately I know better than to ask, as I’d just end up with some cock and bull story like that. I swear you eggheads are all more trouble than you’re worth. Richards swore that location was secure. Should have known better. Now we’ll have to decommission it. More taxpayer money down the drain.”
“It did serve its purpose though. It allowed you to keep Pratt from reprogramming your military hardware, right? I’d say that’s one for the eggheads over the muscleheads, actually.”
“Except the Hulkbuster tech wouldn’t even exist if not for you Banner. But personal responsibility has never been your strong suit has it?”
“That’s not fair, Ross, and you know it. I never asked to be hunted like an animal. I never wanted the Hulk.”
“Neither did we. But we got him, just the same. And unlike you we do what we have to in order to deal with it. Which is why you’ll be joining Pratt and Eve in permanent solitary confinement. A nice comfy cell in an undisclosed location of our choice.”
Bruce tried to stand up but he was still too weak from his recent ordeal. “Ross, wait. Listen to me. I don’t think I’m the Hulk anymore. I was trying to tell Blonsky the same thing but I don’t think he much cared either way. Whatever the aliens did, the Hulks aren’t in me anymore. Their voices are gone, I don’t feel that same…”
He didn’t quite how to explain it. A crowdedness to his psyche as though he was constantly battling to keep a grip on his own mind. That was no longer present. He felt himself for the first time in many years. But how could he explain that to Ross? The skepticism was writ large on his face.
“I’ve heard it before, Banner. And I tell you what, if twenty years from now you haven’t turned into a homicidal green monster again, we’ll repeat this conversation. Until then, you’ll be sedated for the rest of the trip and probably for the foreseeable future after that.”
“Ross listen to me! Damn it, don’t just walk away! It’s unjust to lock me up without even hearing me out, without even trying to find out if what I’m saying is true.”
The General merely shook his head as he approached the room’s reinforced door and buzzed himself out. A phalanx of armed Hulkbuster guards awaited him in the hallway. They had been stationed there as Banner’s constant surveillance ever since his arrival.
“Consider it a vacation. For all of us. I’m not taking any more chances with you. Your little rampages are finished one way or the other. The next time you see the light of day you’ll be too old to be a threat to anyone. Goodbye, Banner. Have a good long rest.”
# # # # #
A few moments later General Ross stepped into his own private quarters. The ADL was still on-course to their secluded destination, ATA one hour fifteen minutes. The pilots would see to landing it safely. From there most of the work would fall to the installation staff. Ross would stick round for the first few months to make certain all the security protocols were being followed. Once that was done…
He reached into his private humidor and selected a thick cigar. The air filtration immediately kicked on as he lit it. Banner could never be taken at face value of course -- a coward is a liar by nature -- but what if he was right? Could the Hulk be finished? Even if that proved an overly optimistic assessment, they had the know-how and technology to hold him on location once properly secured. The medics and their pharmaceuticals would make sure Banner never had a cogent thought or genuine emotional experience again. Sedated and effectively on ice, the threat he represented would be eliminated, one way or other.
It was victory. A strange one, admittedly. Ross always thought it might end in a climactic battle. A throw down between the two of them in which his superior tactics and discipline would ultimately prevail. To luck upon Banner after some interfering aliens had done all his work for him didn’t taste right.
You should be satisfied, he told himself. You did your job. But even the cigar, one of the few pleasures he allowed himself, hung like wet cardboard in his mouth.
“General Ross, sir, are you there?”
He touched the comm pad next to his desk. “Present. Report.”
“I don’t know how to say this…I mean…I’m not sure…”
Panic. Uncertainty. Already Ross’s back felt a little straighter.
“Calm down, soldier. Just tell me what happened.”
“He’s…escaped. He’s gone…”
Ross discarded his cigar in the ashtray. Banner. Of course. Of course.
“I’ll be right there. Inform SHIELD that we’ll require an additional heavy strike force ASAP. Send them the exact coordinates from where the Hulk jumped ship. And if there’s a breach in the hull, we’ll need to--”
“No, sir, that’s just it. He didn’t break out. He just disappeared. No one has been in or out of his room.”
“Explain yourself. People don’t just disappear.”
“I know that, sir, but I swear that is what happened. He was sitting up in bed, demanding an audience with you, and then…”
“Go on.”
“He stopped, sir. He seemed like he was speaking to someone else for a brief moment but there was no one in the room with him. Then a second later he was gone. Just…gone.”
Russ rubbed his temples. Three days, eight hours, fifteen minutes had passed since capture and somehow he’d already lost his quarry yet again. To who or what currently unknown. One thing was clear though and that’s where he’d have to start.
“Very well. Put a science team together, I’ll want a complete diagnostic on everything that happened in that room. In the meantime, notify the Pentagon. Bruce Banner is at large, presumed to be threat level omega. The Hulkbuster unit is active and on his trail. We will apprehend. And let the crew know… The hunt is back on, gentlemen.”
THE END
Author Notes:
…and I thought my Fantastic Four run took forever to wrap-up! This is a six issue story that required three writers and nearly twice as many years to complete. Lacking any kind of guiding script, I just made up an ending I thought acceptable, so don’t blame the previous writers for the sketchiness of the above story. That surely wasn’t their plan and my real goal was less to entertain than to tie-up loose ends and get Hulk back in usable condition again.
Still, I do hope you found a little enjoyment in the execution. I at least had fun messing around with the atypical format Micah used for his scene breaks. I hope that should he ever see it that he doesn’t mind too much. I’d have loved to see his final issues myself but in their absence…well, this will have to suffice for an ending.
But what kind of ending exactly? Where did Banner go? Is he still the Hulk? Those are questions in part for the next writer to answer but they’re answers that M2K regular Dale Glaser already has some very solid ideas on. He was good enough to help me brainstorm up solutions to some of the Hulk’s stray plot threads as well as suggest the detour that final scene takes. Why? Because he has some plans of his own for the Hulk. As for what those might involve, well, that’ll have to remain a Secret for now…
Finally, you may note this issue was labeled Rage: Part Six, whereas Micah ended on Rage: Part Two. Whither the other parts? Hard to say. Just the sort of thing that happens when you start mucking around with Timerafts, the Negative Zone, and the fabric of the universe! Actually, I made writing a believable (?!?) conclusion my only real goal with this issue, so I just cut right to it, and allowed for a number of events to happen off-screen in those un-chronicled parts. You can piece them together through the dialogue and exposition if you want. Probably not the best approach but any story that’s been through this many writers and interpretations is unlikely to be a thing of beauty. The point is it shambled across the finish line and all’s well that ends with a Hulk once again available for M2K writers to use. It’ll all look nice enough in the archive, I suspect, and even nicer when we’ve got a brand new Hulk series going strong on the site.
So…quit wasting time on my meanderings and get working on that proposal why don’t you?
Thanks for reading.
-Alan