Hulk-demic

Chapter 4 "that is a human"

The shout, "Go! Go!" shook Banner awake. About 30 seconds after jumping out of Banner's jeep that soldier had died. The soldier who had nearly fallen down the well had survived, as did the Jeep's driver, a kid called Simon. Buddy had also died, luring the beast down the funnel into the chamber, when that hulking disgrace landed on him. As Banner awoke from his nightmares, his eyes opened with dread. He sat in the dark.

The actual time didn't matter. His life was now short breaks, stolen naps, and then back to work. He was awake, which meant only one thing. Returning to his lab. Where it waited for him...

The actual time didn't matter, but time did. The cold had succeeded in sedating the green monster. They had it below freezing, a temperature that would cause frostbite and eventual death to normal men. It sat slumped against the wall and even though it wore nothing more than the rags that had been its clothes on May 6, it did not shiver or show any signs of injury other than its apparent sedateness.

He knew his lab to be 290 steps away, but Betty's room was closer. 217 steps. The two injured soldiers were in the bunker's make-shift triage, and as the only surviving field medic Betty spent time with them. The so-called triage was little more than a small office on the top level with a couple of cots and some basic first aid supplies. But that was likely where she was now. Triage was one level up and 260 steps away.

He and Betty were both focused on their respective jobs, but they seemed to bump into each other once in a while. She would bring coffee to the lab for everyone and even help out as best she could with some of the equipment. Since no one on Banner's remaining team was medical, he also leaned on her for some insights into human physiology. She had told him, for example, that frostbite normally set in at temperatures below 5 degrees.

It had been 3 days since they captured the beast. Banner had confirmed the presence of altered cells and saw the signature of the gamma radiation. The Geiger counters were off the charts. It went beyond 100 times what Banner thought should kill a person. Superhuman rage and strength aside, the beast was radioactive enough that just being near it was dangerous. While it was sealed in the chamber, the lab was safe. But inside might well be the most radioactive spot on earth.

General Ross spent most of his time in the labs as well. He was desperate for any information that might either help save them or help destroy these hulking nightmares. As Banner arrived, the General was crawling down Rick's throat. Banner immediately interceded. "General--" But Ross was never one to let someone else complete a sentence when he wanted to talk.

"Banner, asleep again? We got to find their weakness, Banner. When we know that then we can start working on a weapon."

"General, the right weapon won't be a gun or bomb, it'll be a cure."

"This is no time for your pacifism Banner. Men died bringing you this beast, I plan to repay that debt."

"This-" There was a hard-wired camera set up in the room, which showed the creature on small black-and-white monitors throughout the lab. Banner pointed at one. The picture was grainy and black and white, but there it stood. It slumped against one of the walls in its prison. It took about an hour for the cold to calm it. Before then it slammed its mighty frame against the walls and doors but thankfully they withstood its wrath. But since then it had hardly moved. "This beast is a human. If it had rabies or malaria or some new virus," Banner continued, "we would seek a cure first."

"Banner, are you saying that its condition is contagious?"

"I can't say for sure. Our Geiger counters indicate that it is emitting quite a lot of gamma radiation. Assuming the Gamma Radiation Bomb caused this in the first place, then maybe it is contagious. We know so little, including how exactly the gamma rays caused this horrific transformation. So who knows what dose level causes it."

"Then blast your cure Banner, if this condition is contagious that makes it all the more important to wipe these devils out. If Kirbyville is the epicenter to some sort of extreme pandemic, then we could be weeks or even days from some sort of point of no return!" Presumably this monologue would have continued for some time had not Betty arrived.

After getting a status update on the injured men, Ross left for the time being. Rick came over and asked, "Miss Ross, could you look at some of this? I don't understand half this jazz." He showed the two of them some charts. Besides the camera and Geiger counters, other recessed monitors assessed the beast's health. "This is the patient's vitals for the past 4 hours..."

Since entering its catatonic state, the hulk's heart had beaten only 2-3 times a minute. It took one deep breath every several minutes. And its temperature remained within a degree of 101. Their "patient" also showed no signs of injury from its fall or from having recently had hundreds of bullets fired at it at close range. There was also no sign of any other physical damage from the cold.

"It's not normal," she half-laughed, "I can tell you that much." Turning to Bruce, "You mentioned a cure, do you really think this condition could be reversed?"

"Something about the gamma radiation caused them to change in the first place, it is at least a possibility that we should consider that we might be able to reverse it..."

Rick was not as optimistic. "But Dr. Banner, I can't imagine entropy would allow it."

"Entropy?" Betty asked. Ever the eager young student, Rick loved to explain physics.

"Most physical processes lead to a breaking down of structure. In a fire a log turns to ash. Once it's ash, you can't just make a log again."

Like a big sister, Betty chided the young man. "I know what entropy is, Rick. How does it complicate a potential reversal of this process, that's what I'm asking." That was the closest thing to a laugh any of them had in a while, that cheery awkward moment, followed by Rick's grin.

"To have survived this tremendous of a transformation," Bruce continued with a little more authority, "the change itself must have given these creature amazing regenerative powers. Instantaneous in fact. Anything less, and the change should have killed them."

"This super accelerated regeneration," Rick wanted back in, "also probably explains why it is hard to injure them through normal means. Bullet holes probably heal faster than the bullets themselves can travel. So, in effect, bullets bounce right off the things."

"Their near-indestructibility," Bruce jumped in, "is another reason I want to focus on a cure. The trouble is that it might be impossible to safely reverse the effect. If you remove the regenerative powers, all the changes that would take place to the bones, organs, and the rest of the body, would probably prove fatal."

Betty realized immediately the paradox. "So the cure itself might be fatal, which also means looking for a cure might also be looking for the ultimate hulk-killing weapon."

Bruce nodded. "I already built the bomb that created these creatures, which ruined the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I can't just kill them all off without trying to save them." He pointed at the brooding creature shown on the monitor. It leaned against the wall in its small prison. "That is a human, and I did that to him!"