Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

Betty gasped in astonishment, and Bruce heard her and turned in response. He seemed energetic, almost . . . happy.

“Bruce,” Betty said, and it was more of a question than a salutation.

He nodded and smiled broadly. Betty wasn’t sure which was more bizarre: that Bruce was alive and well, or that he was smiling, since he didn’t smile all that much even on his best days.

“I’m going to be okay,” he informed her cheerily as he stood. “Really. Barely enough for a slight tan.” Then, abruptly, he sat back down, looking a little faint. “Oh,” he said, sounding puzzled, as if surprised that his legs were reluctant to support his weight.

Betty looked over at the nurse. The doctor held up the developed film from Bruce’s radiation detector and raised an eyebrow.

“We’re double checking,” said Dr. Chandler. “According to the dosimeter badge he was wearing, your friend should be the consistency of burnt toast right now. But I can’t find much of anything.”

She stared closely at Bruce, indulging in a flight of fancy for a moment and wondering whether Bruce might possibly have been taken over by, or even replaced by, aliens. Yes. Yes, that made perfect sense. Far more than that a human being could smother a leak of pure gamma radiation with his body and come away from it looking better than he did in the morning.

It was impossible, just impossible. It wasn’t as if his body could have just healed it . . .

. . . self . . .

She stopped dead, unable to believe that it had taken this long for the thought to occur to her. She had been so filled with mental pictures of Bruce dead, the image of him splayed across the gamma cannon vivid in her mind, that the events directly preceding his exposure to the gamma radiation had been a blur to her. Only now were the full implications of what had occurred becoming clear to her, and her disbelief was gradually being replaced with growing excitement.

“Could you excuse us . . . just for a sec?” Betty asked.

“Sure,” said the doctor.

She moved away, gesturing for the nurse to follow so that Betty could have some privacy with Bruce. Very slowly, Betty approached Bruce, not shifting her gaze in the slightest. Bruce saw the way she was staring at him and laughed.

Laughed. Yes, suddenly the whole alien theory was looking more and more promising.

“What?” he demanded when she said nothing at first. “Come on. That badge was probably exposed at the factory before I ever put it on.”

He was in some sort of denial. That was why he was so calm, almost jovial. He clearly didn’t understand what the fuss was all about, why the fact that he was still alive was nothing short of miraculous.

“You saved Harper’s life,” said Betty, “and all of ours.”

“Don’t be silly,” Bruce said dismissively. “It was obviously a malfunction. I probably took a dose nothing more than a fluorescent light.”

“No, the radiation was bad enough. What I’m talking about is the nanomeds. How else could you have survived it?” asked Betty.

Bruce started to laugh again, then stopped as the full weight of her observations dawned on him. “Wait, you’re saying I was exposed to the radiation, but that the nanomeds repaired me? Come on, Betty,” he said.

“I don’t have any other explanation.” It wasn’t an admission Betty made lightly or willingly. She was the type of person who liked to have three or four explanations for any given phenomenon, and then spend time trying to narrow them down so she could be sure. Perceiving only one possibility just didn’t seem . . . scientific somehow. It was almost like cheating.

Bruce lowered his feet off the bed again and leaned against it, looking stunned.

“But . . . if it’s true, then . . . they worked. They actually worked.”

She almost wanted to laugh. After all, the entire purpose of the nanomed project was to make them work, yet Bruce appeared amazed that it had been accomplished. Still, as pleased as she was on his behalf—on both their behalves—she knew that she had to be the voice of reason before things went too far.

“No,” she said, and when he looked at her quizzically, she continued pointing out the downside. “We haven’t come close to controlling them. You know it. It’s . . . you.” When Bruce tried to dismiss the theory out of hand, Betty continued forcefully because she knew she was right. “They would have killed anyone else. Bruce, there’s something—different—in you.”

She could see it in his eyes: He wasn’t accepting the notion. He started shaking his head and said firmly, “We’ve got to start checking, doing studies, analyzing genetic makeup. Obviously we have to try and replicate—”

“Replicate!”

“We have to try the experiment again,” he said matter-of-factly. “No scientific result is worth a damn if it can’t be replicated. You know that, Betty. Now we have to get right on—”

But apparently Dr. Chandler had remained within hearing distance, and now she reentered the room. “‘We’ aren’t doing anything right now, Dr. Krenzler, except getting back in bed where we can observe you. I bent the rules to allow Dr. Ross to see you, but enough is enough. You’re not going anywhere, Dr. Krenzler, and if you endeavor to do so, I will have to have you restrained. I’d rather you didn’t put me in that position.”

“I’d rather you weren’t in it either.” He looked at Betty apologetically. “Sorry. I guess we’ll have to delay our research.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She took his hand and squeezed it affectionately. “I’m just thrilled you’re still alive so I can do the research with you.”

His hand felt cold. Cold as ice, and a stark contrast to the ruddy complexion and air of health he had about him. Delicately she released his hand.

God . . . what’s happened to him? Betty wondered. But the individual to whom she had addressed the question seemed rather silent on the subject.