Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

might just have been the stuff of dreams. With long practice, though, he kept any hint of alarm or concern from his voice. “You nervous?”

“Yes,” said Betty matter-of-factly.

“You’ll be fine,” said Bruce. He took the vial of blood from her. “And I’m going to do this myself.”

Betty was obviously startled. She’d told Bruce the type of tests she wanted to run on the blood sample, looking for mutagenic traces. He’d readily agreed that such tests should indeed be run . . . but he hadn’t promised that he was going to have her do it. And now that the blood had been drawn, Bruce was thinking that if there was something to be discovered about his biological makeup, then he was the one most entitled to discover it. Nor was he putting the matter up for debate as he held onto the vial firmly even as Betty reached for it.

“Myself,” he repeated.

She looked as if she wanted to argue the point, but finally she just shrugged her slim shoulders. “As long as it gets done,” she said.

Throughout the rest of the day, Bruce Krenzler, pushing the matter of the Banner name out of his head, worked on studying the blood sample. There was most definitely something there, but the problem was he wasn’t entirely sure what that something was. He felt as if he were an Aborigine staring at a model of a DNA strand, having some vague idea that there was something of importance here but knowing that he didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to begin to comprehend it. Computer analysis was of little help to him, because row after row of questions and tests came back with one of two responses:

Insufficient data.

Unknown.

The “insufficient data” didn’t bother him as much as the “unknown,” for some reason. Perhaps it was because “insufficient data” left room for the possibility that more data would be forthcoming, along with answers. But “unknown” was vast, and could very possibly remain unknowable.

He leaned back from the electron microscope at one point, rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and cursed to himself. Then he suddenly looked over his shoulder. But there was no one there.

Or perhaps someone had been there but no longer was.

“Unknown” indeed.

The Joint Tactical Force West was a sprawling base situated about thirty miles outside of Berkeley. Betty remembered it all too well. When she had been very small, she’d seen news broadcasts showing Berkeley students demonstrating outside the base, complaining or protesting about some military engagement somewhere. She remembered her father loudly cursing out the kids on TV, and she had promptly joined her father in a rigorous session of off-color language. Ross had first been startled by his daughter’s word choice, but then realized she’d picked it up from him and instead let out a hearty laugh. It was one of those rare instances when she had actually pleased him, and even now—as she showed her ID to the guard at the gate before driving on—it was one of her more pleasant memories of growing up. Possibly because it was one of the few instances when she knew she had genuinely entertained her father.

She reminded herself that she was her own person, and she wasn’t required to provide entertainment for her father. Yes, she certainly had the knee-jerk feminist line good to go, which didn’t help her at all in terms of dealing with her dad.

Having parked the car near the building that housed the officer’s club, Betty got out, smoothed her blouse and skirt, then breathed into her open palm to check her breath. Just to play it safe, she popped in a breath mint, and then headed toward the club’s main entrance.

She was stopped at the door, of course, and made to show her ID all over again. Even then they wouldn’t let her enter until they found her name, and even that took longer than it should have because they had her reservation misfiled as “Ross Elizabeth” instead of “Elizabeth Ross.”

Upon seeing the name, and knowing the other individual with whom it was associated, the maître d’ immediately snapped to. Without a word, he pointed in the direction of her father, Thunderbolt Ross, seated at a table with his back ramrod straight and a drink in his hand. He was staring into the drink thoughtfully, but some inner “old soldier” sense made him realize that Betty was there. He looked in her direction and simply nodded in greeting. Effusive as ever.

She strode toward him and, when she got in range, he stood to greet her.

“Hi, Dad,” she said.

“Betty,” said Ross. He looked her up and down. She resisted the temptation to salute him. “You’ve changed your hair color,” he announced.

No, she hadn’t. “I appreciate your noticing. Thank you,” she said as she sat. “It was nice of you to come out all this way.”

He shrugged. “Half-hour chopper ride. Not a vast inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.”

They made minimal small talk as the waiter brought them menus and, a short time later, bread and butter in a wire basket. Betty didn’t push her father on what it was he wanted to speak with her about. She knew him well enough to know she didn’t have to push. He was going to tell her before too long, because Thaddeus Ross wasn’t one for beating around the bush if one could stomp the bush flat or level it with a bulldozer.

He didn’t let her down as, in short order, he announced to her, “All right, I’ll get right to it.”

Betty had been considering all the possible things her father might want to speak to her about, and she blurted out what was—to her—the most obvious and most likely. “This is about Glen, isn’t it? He’s been snooping around my lab.”

“Glen noticed some things,” Ross said guardedly. “He . . . asked me to make some inquiries.”

Something about the way Ross said that made Betty think that he wasn’t being entirely forthcoming with her.