CHAPTER 11
Bruce packed up and got ready to say good-bye to Stan. He didn’t want to put his friend in danger by staying too long. Also, there was nothing at Culver University that was going to help with his cure. He had to stay moving so General Ross didn’t find him before Bruce could at least get a sense of what his next step should be.
“We’re pretty well closed here, folks, I’m sorry,” he heard Stan say as he came down into the kitchen. Then he heard other voices and waited. As usual, Stan was willing to serve that one last customer who showed up late at the end of the night.
Something about one of the voices… Bruce went to the swinging kitchen doors and looked out into the dining area.
At that moment, Betty looked up over Leonard’s shoulder to see who was there and gasped with shock. But then Leonard shifted his position, blocking her view. When he moved again, Bruce had vanished.
Leonard spoke, but Betty couldn’t hear a word. She just stared through the swinging doors, and sprang past Leonard into the back room. “Bruce!” she yelled.
Bruce wasn’t there, so Betty burst out the back door into an alley. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the first raindrops began to fall. Betty quickly glanced left and right. “Bruce!”
But there was no sign of him.
Little did Betty know, Bruce had flattened himself further behind a dumpster, holding his breath.
“Betty!” Leonard called as he followed her. “What’s going on? Come inside.” The rain was already falling harder.
Betty strode back inside, shaking, heading straight for Stan, who stood paralyzed behind the parlor counter. “Just tell me if I saw what I think I saw,” Betty pleaded.
“Betty,” Stan began, agonized between protecting Bruce and lying to an old friend. “I don’t… know what to say.”
Bruce was headed out of town. He didn’t even know where. He walked along one of the main roads that led toward the closest interstate highway, trying to hitchhike in the pouring rain. Nobody stopped… then, when he had just about resigned himself to another night spent walking in the rain, he heard a car pull to a stop behind him. Probably a policeman, Bruce thought, and started coming up with a good story. He also took a look around to see what the best escape route would be.
But when he turned around, he saw Betty getting out of her car, stunned at the sight of him. She had followed him, looked for him all over town probably, and knowing that made Bruce feel better than he’d felt in a long time.
She ran to Bruce and embraced him tightly. “Don’t go,” Betty begged. “I want you to come with me now. Please.”
Bruce knew it wasn’t safe. He knew he might be putting her in danger. But he couldn’t help it, not with her right there talking to him, her arms wrapped around his neck and her heart beating fast.
Bruce hid in the back of Betty’s car until they were inside the garage of the house she shared with Leonard. She went into the house first and pulled all the curtains so Bruce could move around unseen. Then, when he was sitting in the living room and dried off, she handed him a little jewel case. “It’s our data,” she said. “I got in there before they carted it all away. I hoped that it might tell us something someday.”
Bruce looked at the tiny USB drive. It was such a little thing to have all his hopes for a cure inside it. “Does the general know you have this?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of years.”
“You have to be sure,” he said.
“Bruce, I don’t understand why we can’t just go in there together and talk to him.”
“He told me what he wanted to do. He wants it out of me. He wants to dissect it so that he can replicate it,” Bruce said. He meant the monster, the Hulk. She knew about it. She had been there when it had first appeared. “He wants to make it a weapon.”
After dinner, Betty led Bruce to a spare room. “Do you need anything?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “I should leave early. As early as I can.”
“I want to, but it’s just not safe for me to be here. If I can borrow cash from you, I’ll take the bus.”
“Of course,” Betty said quickly. “At least let me walk you to the station.”
“Okay,” Bruce said.
“You have everything you need?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bruce said. He didn’t want her to leave, and he could tell she didn’t want to, either. But they both said good night, and Bruce lay awake for a long time, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
General Ross picked up the serum from the secured medical storage rooms in the basement and took it upstairs to the lab, where two medical technicians were prepping for the procedure. Ross handed the canister to an assistant. Emil Blonsky, shirtless, came in, and Ross got right down to business.
“We’re giving you a very low dose only. I need you sharp out there and disciplined,” Ross said. “First sign of any side effects and you’re off the team until you straighten out. Agreed?”
Blonsky nodded, committed to the path he’d chosen. “Agreed.”
“You’ll get two separate infusions, dripped in very slowly,” a technician explained. “One deep into the muscle, one into the bone marrow centers.” The tech smiled grimly. “The bone ones are going to hurt.”
They put Blonsky on a table and strapped him in so they could keep him steady while they completed the injections. The first two went into the sides of his neck and weren’t too bad.
Then they turned the table over. Hanging three feet over the floor facedown, Blonsky felt the technician’s fingertips locating the right spot on his spine. The tech pressed down between two verbetrae.
A moment later, the needle went in, and it was the worst pain Blonsky had ever felt in his life. He’d seen combat. He’d been shot. Nothing had ever compared to this. He held himself back from screaming out loud only because he refused to give in to the pain. After what seemed like an eternity, the needle started to withdraw from his spine. As it did, Blonsky felt…
Different. Something was changing inside him.
And as the pain began to fade, he thought he was starting to feel… well… better than he had in a long time.
Still hung facedown, Blonsky smiled. It was not a pretty smile.