Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

They were obviously private photographs of Betty with some man, taken as part of some sort of surveillance. There were several of them, walking arm in arm through a park, or relaxing together, she leaning against him in an intimate manner. This alone was enough to make him bristle.

“Talbot,” he said slowly, “I don’t give a damn about your catch. You will explain to me why you have my daughter being watched—”

“We’re not. We’re having him watched. Betty just happens to be involved with him . . . and that, I think, might be cause for concern on your part.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “You were right that there’s something more going on with Lawrence Berkeley than the nanomed program, General. But it has nothing to do with anything as relatively unimportant as my past relationship with your daughter. It’s this fellow, right here.”

“What’s so important about him?” demanded Ross, but even as he asked he found himself staring fixedly at the young man’s face. “And why does he seem . . . familiar?”

“You knew his father.”

“I knew his . . .”

And then his eyes widened, and he understood. “Oh, my God. Are you telling me . . .” Talbot nodded and Ross looked back at the photos. “It’s like looking at a ghost,” he whispered. “A ghost of someone who’s still alive, albeit locked away.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean?” And then Ross was also on his feet, standing up so quickly that he banged his knee on the underside of the desk drawer. He ignored the pain. “The father’s walking around? David Banner? That lunatic? How?”

“He was released from the hospital. He was evaluated, and it was determined he was no longer a threat.”

“God save us from fuzzy-minded liberals and their evaluations!” snarled Ross. “And they’ve no idea where he is? Do you think he might be heading toward his son?”

“It’s possible. He could also be on a slow boat to China; we’ve no way to be sure. But it might be that he is determined to hook up with his son again. And, if that’s the case, Betty might be at risk.”

“There’s no ‘might be’ about it.” He stared at the pictures again, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. “After all these years, Bruce Banner.”

“Krenzler. That’s his adopted name.”

Ross continued to shake his head. “I said at the time having that boy simply disappear into the adoption system was madness. But at the time I was in a hellhole of hot water with a base that was on fire, thanks to the boy’s father. Why should anyone listen to me?” He paused. “Does he know? Does he know who he is, where he came from?”

“I don’t know,” said Talbot. “It’s hard for me to be sure. It’s possible he knows. It’s also possible he blocked it out.”

“So Betty might not know, might not be aware of what she’s gotten herself into. My God . . .” He looked up at Talbot, and his expression softened. “You were right. Dammit, Glen, I may not agree with some of the choices you’ve made in your life, but this time around I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, General,” Talbot said modestly. “Look, Betty and I may not have worked out, but that was quite a while ago, and besides, it doesn’t mean I don’t want the best for her. And at least I know now that someone who will be concerned about her best interests is on the job. Believe me, General, your involvement in this might just save her life.”

a sacrifice too great?

He saved my life, Bruce saved my life, my God, he’s dead, Bruce . . .

Betty had been pacing her office frantically, only stopping every so often to see if an ambulance had pulled up yet. She was going mad with fear, because she knew that Bruce was lying somewhere in some room where they weren’t letting her see him. She could just imagine what he must look like, sick and dying of radiation poisoning, his skin puckered and burned, his hair falling out in clumps. He was probably blind by this point, hemorrhaging internally. Maybe no ambulance had shown up yet because there was no point. Maybe he was already . . . already . . .

When her phone rang, she jumped nearly three feet and then pounced on it. She listened to the voice at the other end, and didn’t even hang up the phone as she bolted from the room. She just tossed the receiver in the general direction of the cradle and wasn’t around to see it bounce off the phone and clunk to the floor, hanging by the twisted cord.

He’s asking for you.

The four words rang repeatedly in her head as she sprinted down the hallway. She still couldn’t believe that Bruce was in the lab’s infirmary. Radiation poisoning in the infirmary? They weren’t remotely prepared to deal with an injury of this magnitude. It was like sending a child gushing blood from the stump of a severed arm to the school nurse so she could make him some hot cocoa.

Betty almost skidded past the infirmary in her haste, then stopped, took a deep breath, and prepared herself for the worst. She hoped she would keep it together. The last thing Bruce needed was for her to come utterly unglued or get overemotional. For all she knew, this was the last time they were going to see each other, and she simply had to maintain control. She glanced at her reflection in the glass of the door, hoped that the redness in her eyes wasn’t too evident, and then walked into the infirmary, prepared to see Hazmat teams and Geiger counters clicking off the scale.

Instead she saw Bruce sitting on the edge of a bed, shirtless. A nurse was removing the blood pressure gauge from his arm while a tall, businesslike woman doctor wearing a name tag that said “Chandler” made