Hulk by Peter David (e reader manga TXT) 📕

camera, and roared like an extinct monster from prehistory sent forward through time.

“This could be interesting,” muttered Ross.

what man hath wrought

Talbot moved with a contingent of Atheon security, some of them armed. They approached the area where the Hulk was pinned by the foam and paused as they heard him struggling around the corner.

“Let’s get a sample of him,” said Talbot. They took the corner and faced the Hulk. The creature took no notice of them, preoccupied as he was with trying to shake loose the substance that was holding him. It was hardening more and more, making it that much more difficult for the Hulk to maneuver or move at all. Most of him was covered up, but there was a small area left clear near the base of his neck.

Talbot approached cautiously, murmuring, “Now, let’s take this nice and easy.” He brought up a handheld laser drill and punched it into the Hulk’s neck. The Hulk recoiled, screaming. His undiluted fury caused Talbot and the others to take several steps back, and then—even though his skin was tearing off in huge chunks—the infuriated man-monster began to rip free from the foam.

Once one piece came loose, others did as well, and suddenly Talbot realized that the Hulk was within seconds of completely freeing himself. Odds were that the first one he’d go for would be the guy with the handheld laser drill.

“Pull back,” he ordered, and he didn’t have to say it twice. The men retreated around the corner, the last bits of the foam went flying, and the Hulk thundered after them. He shook the walls and floor with each footstep.

Even as he retreated, Talbot heard large door locks beginning to disengage, the loud ka-klak of the metal releases echoing up and down the hallways. That damned Ross had found a way to override the lock down commands. Within seconds the doors would be rising and standard army troops would come flying in like locusts. Talbot would never hear the end of it, never.

Unless he stopped the monster first.

If he couldn’t get samples from the living monster, he’d do what he could once the Hulk was dead. He just hoped that it wouldn’t revert back to Bruce Banner before he could obtain the mutated tissue he needed.

One of the Atheon guards dashed past him, and Talbot grabbed the rifle right out of his hands. He knew it was packing APM2 .30-06-caliber armor-piercing bullets. Nothing short of Type IV body armor would repel one of those, and if there was one thing he could say definitively about the Hulk, it was that he wasn’t wearing body armor. As for the guard, he seemed all too eager to give it up. It was just one less thing to slow him down.

Talbot spun to face the Hulk, standing his ground. Despite the fact that the monster towered over him, Talbot only saw him as the pathetic, whining scientist who he’d so easily brutalized earlier. Monster and man eyed each other for a moment, and Talbot thought it might be his imagination, but the Hulk seemed to recognize him as more than just an enemy.

. . . hurt . . . hurt us . . . me . . . hurt us . . . hurt him . . . more . . . hurt him MORE . . .

Talbot gasped and stepped back as the Hulk lurched toward him . . . and grew. As if reaching well more than eight feet in height hadn’t been enough, the Hulk’s mass increased even more, and seconds later he was filling up the entire corridor. He was half again as tall, and just as wide, so huge that he’d actually managed to wedge himself in there. He looked around in frustration, grunted, and flexed his muscles until the walls of the corridor started to creak to accommodate him.

Talbot, temporarily transfixed, watched in awe. He heard the pounding boots of the approaching troops, and all he could think was that it was damned considerate of the Hulk to have made himself an even bigger target than he was before.

“So long, big boy,” said Talbot, and he unleashed a hail of powerful automatic fire. The Hulk didn’t stagger because he was wedged into place, but his face contorted in pain as the bullets made contact, and for a heartbeat Talbot thought he had won.

It turned out to be one of the last heartbeats Glen Talbot experienced, because the air was then filled with the sound of metallic pinging as the bullets bounced off the Hulk. Having nowhere else to go, they ricocheted around, and a good number of them riddled Talbot. He crumpled to the ground, clutching at his chest. Feeling something soft and disgusting, he tried to shove it back in, whatever it was. And then he went into shock, and he died.

The remaining troops, witnessing it all, turned tail and ran for it.

Ross witnessed it as well.

He saw Talbot struck, and time slowed down. As Talbot fell, Thunderbolt Ross saw a young, eager-beaver officer who was determined to go places and set the world on fire. He saw the up-and-comer he’d made a personal project of because he knew that this was a young man who was going places. And he saw a young man consumed by money and cynicism and power.

In his way, Talbot had been just as corrupted by power as anyone carrying the name of Banner; he just did a better job of covering it up.

All this went through Ross’s mind, and then he saw Talbot hit the floor and flop around like a dying seal. At which point the trained military mind of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross wrote off Talbot, case closed, time to move on. Because with all the evil and deceit that Glen Talbot had accomplished, he had at least managed one positive thing: He had let Ross know with his dying act that the Hulk was a creature against whom