COME TOGETHER

Part II

By Derrick Ferguson

Jim Hammond snapped back into full functionality without the disorientation that a human being would have experienced upon his or her return to consciousness. Being an artificial life form certainly did have its benefits.

Jim surveyed his situation. He was lying on a gurney in what appeared to be some type of examination room. He was secured in a straitjacket of what he assumed was a fireproof material. His legs were free but tied down with thick bands of the same material. Jim grinned.

People had a lot of assumptions about Jim Hammond’s powers and thought that he could only generate and control flames. Jim could also do a lot of other things; such as generate heat without flames or absorb heat. Which is what he did now. In one minute the temperature of the examination room had dropped twenty degrees. Another two minutes and it was seventy degrees colder. Ice was visibly forming on the walls and Jim’s breath was steaming. He gave it another minute and then simply jerked his legs upwards and opened his arms wide. Having been made extremely brittle from the super fast drop in temperature, the straitjacket and leg restraints shattered like a dropped drinking glass.

Jim shook the fragments loose from his body as he swung off the bed and stretched. Then the grin of triumph left his face to be replaced by a look of pure determined resolve.

“Flame on!” And Jim Hammond burst into furious blazing life as The Human Torch, orange-red flames engulfing his lean, muscular body. The Torch directed a blast of flame at the double doors of the examination room, blowing them off their hinges. He flew into the wide corridor, swooping in a left banking turn as he left a blazing trail in his wake.

He wanted Professor Ban and then he wanted The Hulk, in that order. Something was definitely not right here and The Human Torch meant to shut down The Kwaidan Corporation himself and governmental jurisdiction be damned. He’d shut it down on his own authority and worry about the legalities later on. And there was the mystery of Janelle Ban to solve. Just how had she been able to take him down so easily?

The Human Torch rounded a corner and halted in flight. He was just noticing that the walls and floor appeared to be vibrating and now that he was listening he could hear distant screams and thunderous blows that he was afraid could only come from one source and one source only: The Hulk. Banner had changed into the man-monster, The Torch was sure of that.

With the merest thought he increased the temperature of his flames and flew through the ceiling of the corridor, melting the metal with no effort at all. The Torch continued on his way, blazing upwards through twelve floors of The Kwaidan Corporation, his sensitive hearing triangulating on the source of the screaming and pounding. And his hearing picked up one thing more: an insane bellowing emerging from lungs like great iron bellows.

“SHOW YOURSELF, YA GUTLESS PRICK!”

The Human Torch burst through the floor in a shower of melted metal and hovered in the air above the hole in all his blazing fury. Standing just a few feet away from him was The Hulk.

The Human Torch’s eyes widened in horror as he saw that the walls of the corridor were smeared with blood and gore. The Hulk’s face and hands were splashed with crimson. Upon seeing that look of horror on The Human Torch’s face, The Hulk grinned.

“Knew if I yanked th’ legs offa some’a these geeks their screeching would bring ya runnin’, Hammond.” The Hulk stalked toward The Torch. “Now get ready ta say goodbye ta yer ass.”

“Wrong, Banner. Dead wrong.” Both of The Torch’s arms pistoned outwards and a solid tube of white hot fire exploded from them, engulfing The Hulk in a corona of super hot flame that was so volatile the metal walls and ceilings dribbled and ran like water.

Exposed electrical wiring crackled and the sprinkler system came on. So hot was The Torch that the water turned to steam long before it hit him. But the exposed electrical wiring was soaked. Fat yellow sparks danced along the systems, causing shorts all through the systems. Small explosions ran along the wall as the electrical shorts cascaded through the sophisticated systems. The lights on five floors abruptly went out as the building itself took steps to contain the damage.

The corridor was illuminated only by the crackling flaming form of the hovering Human Torch. The Hulk was on his knees, thick fingers digging into the butter soft metal of the floor, head down. His hair had completely burned away, leaving him bald.

With a wild whoop, The Hulk sprang to his feet with that uncanny speed and agility that nothing that big had no right possessing. Even though The Torch had blasted away a good deal of The Hulk’s chest, exposing his emerald breast bone and ribs, the flesh was regenerating right before The Human Torch’s eyes.

He bolted straight upwards, burning through the ceiling and continuing upwards. At all costs he had to keep The Hulk’s hands off of him. As long as he could keep the man-monster too enraged to think and keep out of his range, The Human Torch a chance to survive this fight. Not much of a chance to be sure, but The Torch had nothing but supreme confidence in his experience and power. But even he had to admit this was one time he could use backup. Where the hell is Hardbottle and his team?

Hardbottle ejected the clip from his FN P90 and reached around to the small of his back for a new clip. He dived and rolled as he did so, coming up smoothly, slamming the clip home and unleashing a lethal burst at the Kwaidan Corporation security team.

Bullet had already wiped out nearly half the team. His steel blue jumpsuit was made of a polycarbondium micromesh that could stop most calibers up to and including 9mm rounds. And that terrifying speed of his always took his opponents by surprise. It was always frightening to see what appeared to be a 6’ 11” Dennis Franz weighing 400 pounds speeding right at you with the fleet footedness of a Carl Lewis. Before the security team knew what was happening, Bullet was right in the middle of them, those huge fists striking down two or three of them at a time. And the ones Bullet didn’t get, Hardbottle mowed down with quiet efficiency. He used ceramic bullets that punched through the body armor of the security team as if it were ordinary cloth.

“Felton! Get us some backup in here!” Bullet yelled as he planted one size eighteen in a man’s chest. That unfortunate flew backward to impact two feet deep in the nearest wall where he remained embedded there.

“On it!” Hardbottle reached to his throat where a com unit was banded around his throat. “Annabel!”

“Don’t shout. I have very good hearing.”

“Bullet and I are in trouble! Open the door!”

“You got it. Duck and cover.”

Hardbottle yelled, “Bullet! Annabel’s gonna open the door.”

“Oh, shit.” Bullet stopped his attack and dashed toward Hardbottle, moving so fast he was a huge blue blur. He grabbed Hardbottle up under one arm, executed an impossible 90 degree turn and ran back deeper into the lobby of the building.

The security forces looked perplexed as Bullet zoomed past them but their attention was brought back to the steel shutters that covered all the entrance doors of The Kwaidan Building. The doors were further reinforced by a force field that had cut off the escape of Hardbottle and Bullet which necessitated them battled off a small army.

But now those steel shutters were glowing with a pure white light and the goggles the security men wore darkened to compensate for the sudden brilliant glare that filled the lobby.

And then the steel shutters simply disintegrated as they were consumed by that brilliant pure white glare. In fact, the entire front of the Kwaidan Building was vaporized. It was simply gone.

Standing on the plaza outside, smoking a long, thin black cigar was Annabel St. Cyr, an enigmatic smile of her face. Her skin tight one-piece black bodysuit was more sensual than if she had been standing there totally naked. A waist length red leather jacket, boots and gloves completed her ensemble. She removed the cigar from her lusciously full lips and said, “knock knock.”

Hardbottle watched as the rest of the security force heading for the elevators and staircases, withdrawing from the field. He checked his weapons as he said to Bullet; “You know what they’re doing, right?”

Bullet cracked his knuckles. “Regrouping. If I were them I’d pull back and let us come to them. By now they’ve sent out all kinds of alerts. We gotta move fast, Felton.”

“We’ve got time.” Hardbottle took out his cellphone and flipped it open, hit the speed dial.

The phone was answered on the first ring. “Colonel Hardbottle. Some disturbing reports coming from Seattle.”

“Can you buy me some time, sir?”

“I can. But not much. Do you think you can accomplish your mission?”

“With all due respect, sir: I don’t think that’s a viable option anymore. I think our mission has to be one of extreme prejudice.”

“I see. Do what you think best, Colonel. And God bless you.”

Hardbottle put away his phone and took out his flask. He first offered it to Bullet. “Want a taste?”

“Nah.”

Hardbottle tossed back the contents and threw the empty flask away. He yelled to Annabel; “Stay there and watch our exit. Flash fry anybody who comes out that isn’t us.”

Annabel cheerfully waved her cigar in compliance.

Hardbottle motioned to Bullet. “Let’s go.”

Lt. Ethan smoked his cigarette as if it were his last as Seattle PD set up a perimeter two blocks from The Kwaidan Building. S.W.A.T. was setting up their strategic positions. His walkie-talkie crackled with urgent chatter from various units as they reported in their status. Police helicopters were on the way and they would soon be over their target and reporting to Lt. Ethan what the situation was.

Sgt. Phillips ran up to Lt. Ethan, weighed down by his body armor, AR-15, impact helmet and the rest of his tactical gear. “Everybody’s in place, Lt. When do we move in?”

Lt. Ethan lit a fresh cigarette with the butt of the old one. “We don’t.”

Sgt. Phillips blinked in disbelief. “We don’t? Then what are we doing here, sir?”

“Maintaining the perimeter and making sure civilians stay away.”

“But we’ve got a situation here, sir!”

Ethan sighed, exhaling bluish cigarette smoke as well. His eyes were tired but his voice was rock solid as he said; “You transferred here from San Francisco, didn’t you, Sergeant?”

“What’s that got to do with it, sir?”

“It means that since you’re new to Seattle, you don’t know about all the concessions the city made with Kwaidan to get them to move here. Kwaidan pours a lot of money into the city’s pockets. And in return for all that money, one of the concessions was that Seattle PD never set foot on Kwaidan Corporation property under any circumstances whatsoever.”

Phillips looked at his superior officer with something close to disgust. “You gotta be shittin’ me, lou.”

Ethan shrugged. “What can I tell you? You think we like it? But the word comes down from on high and we have no choice but to obey.”

“So we’re gonna just stand here with our thumbs up our ass and let whoever is inside of that building destroy it?”

Ethan flicked ash from his half-smoked cigarette. “Yeah. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Sergeant. Return to your post and stay there.”

________________________________________________________________________

Janelle Ban regained consciousness in a dark room. She rolled over on her side, feeling her throbbing head. Dried blood covered the whole left side of her face. She must have hit her head when The Hulk swept her aside. She shakily got to her feet. Light was pouring from the corridor through the hole The Hulk had made in the wall when he ran through it. Janelle stepped out into the corridor. Red lights had popped up from the floor, indicating the path to emergency shelters. There was no one in the hall and no alarms were going off or klaxons blaring.

Janelle Ban unclipped her comm unit from her belt and spoke into it. “This is Professor Ban. Status report.”

The pleasant voice of Marisa Tomei responded. The male programmers of the building’s computer had insisted on giving the computer her voice. It had always irked Janelle. It irked her even more now.

“The building has been evacuated, Professor Ban. It was judged that remaining inside the building presented a life threatening situation and the emergency evacuation was initiated.”

“What life threatening situation is that?”

“The Hulk is free.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Janelle muttered.

“Can you further define those parameters.”

“Oh, shut up,” Janelle snarled. “No, don’t shut up. What about outside?”

“Police units have set up a perimeter. More police units are on the way. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been alerted.”

“Where is The Hulk?”

“Currently he is in the R&D Division along with an individual my sensors have identified as James Hammond aka The Human Torch.”

“Damn. Are the elevators on this level still operational?”

“I can make it so if you wish.”

“Do so. I need to get to The Zero Room.”

There was only one thing left for Janelle Ban to do. The entire situation had gotten totally out of hand. But under no circumstances must the information in The Kwaidan Building fall into the wrong hands. But fortunately Janelle Ban had planned for this. All she had to do reach The Zero Room.

Painfully, slowly, she made her way to the elevator bank.

The Human Torch swooped out of the way of a punch that certainly would have torn him in half if it had connected. He heaved a fireball right into the Hulk’s face. The Hulk tried to duck out of the way but the blazing ball hit him dead bang in the left cheek. Green flesh hissed, bubbled and crackled, exposing the cheekbone and teeth.

The Hulk roared and leaped upwards. But the Torch remained too fast and easily barrel rolled out of the way.

The Research and Development Division of The Kwaidan Corporation took up ten floors of the building and within two minutes of the furious battle between The Hulk and The Human Torch, they’d managed to demolish five of them.

Ruined, smoking wreckage lay in piles on the seared and scorched floor. Exposed wiring hung from the wall and from the floors like technological intestines.

The Hulk ripped loose a section of ceiling as he landed back down on the cracked and buckling floor. He pitched it at The Human Torch snarling; “Fight me like a man, Hammond!”

Even in the midst of dodging the thrown hunk of metal, The Torch couldn’t help but note the irony of a mutated man-monster screaming at an artificial human that they fight like men. The Torch sent another hellish blast of white hot flame into The Hulk’s midsection. The Hulk doubled over with the impact, but recovered quickly and came back up for more, howling like a thousand out of control tornadoes.

The Human Torch attempted to dodge once more but The Hulk’s massive hand latched onto his leg. “Gotcha!”

The Human Torch quickly stuck the index and middle fingers of his right hand into The Hulk’s nostrils and sent two intense spears of white hot flame right into The Hulk’s nasal cavity, raising the temperature of The Hulk’s skull a good couple of hundred thousand degrees in a nano-second.

The Hulk let go of The Human Torch’s leg and produced a sound that The Torch never thought he would hear. The Hulk was actually screaming. The man-monster clutched his head and stomped around in a drunken circle, smoke emerging from his ears and mouth.

The Torch flew the length of the shattered, ruined lab, turned around and zoomed back at The Hulk as fast as he could in the short distance he had. He sped between the man-monster’s legs, grabbed one and continued his thunderous flight, dragging The Hulk after him.

The man-monster’s bellowed drowned out the sounds of walls being smashed to bits as The Human Torch piledrived through them. Hardbottle and his team had to be here by now and The Human Torch had to get The Hulk outside where they could assist. The Torch was using up an extraordinary amount of power battling The Hulk and he didn’t know how much longer he could sustain this level of power before he was exhausted.

The Torch blasted through a final wall and was outside, thousands of feet above the plaza. Thankfully, he simply let the Hulk go. The howling emerald giant plunged downward.

Annabel St. Cyr looked up as the wall exploded outwards and she saw the blazing figure of The Human Torch holding onto the absurdly huge form of The Hulk. She watched as The Hulk was let go and slowly fell toward her position.

“Oh, bother,” she muttered and walked away, fingering her throat mike. “Felton.”

“What is it now?” Hardbottle’s voice sounded pissed. In the background Annabel could hear machine gun fire, curses. “I’m busy!”

“The Hulk’s out here. Along with the firecracker.”

“What? When?”

“Just now. If you listen closely you should hear him hit the pavement right about…now.”

The Hulk impacted into the plaza with fearsome impact, creating a crater twenty feet deep. Huge fissures and cracks ziggazgged crazily away from the point of impact, geysers of dust bursting from deep within. Water mains exploded, filled the air with showers of water.

Annabel, expecting the impact, was able to keep her footing despite the insane buckling of the concrete and she keyed in her throat mike. “Green guy go boom. What do you want me to do?”

“Bullet and I are pinned down by a buncha dickheads who didn’t get the memo that everything’s gone to hell. Can you hold The Hulk there until we arrive?”

Annabel cracked her knuckles. “Don’t see why not. I got Ammo and Dreadknight backing me up.” She looked over at where The Human Torch was landing some two hundred feet away from her. He collapsed to his hands and knees, breathing heavily. “And it looks like the firecracker is out of it. Take your time. I got this.”

Annabel walked toward the crater, hands on her hips, her strut at once seductive and powerful. One huge emerald hand seized the edge of the crater. Followed by another one. And The Hulk hauled himself out of the crater.

He looked he’d been swimming through a sea of lava. His torso was healing up but was still blackened and charred. His head was grotesquely swollen to nearly twice its normal size. His eyes were tiny pits of fury. He opened his mouth, ripping his lips apart as they had been fused together by the heat. A freshet of emerald blood poured from the gaping maw that was his mouth.

“Oooooooo…I think the big green guy is pissed.” Annabel giggled.

“Don’t underestimate him, Annabel! Take him out! Ammo! Dreadknight! Report!”

On the rooftop a quarter mile away, Ammo fingered his throat mike. “I’m in position, Hardbottle. Ya don’t haveta yell.”

“You ready?”

Ammo adjusted the sight on his Barrett M82. The Hulk came into crystal clear focus. “Anytime you give the word I can take his head clean off.”

“Give Annabel a crack at him first!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ammo grumbled.

The Dreadknight stood nearby, stroking the neck of his midnight black Hellhorse. “Do you think you should wait? Would it not be wiser to kill The Hulk now and get this over with?”

“Hey, I got my orders. Hardbottle says wait, I wait. Besides, Annabel ain’t never done a thing for me. Now if she hadda let me tap that fine ass-“ Ammo stopped as Dreadknight mounted his Hellhorse, unsheathing his power lance and activating it. “And where the hell do you think you’re goin’, D?”

“To help.” With a powerful thrust of it’s wings, the Hellhorse rose into the air and soared toward the battle.

Ammo sighed. “Everybody’s goin’ bugshit on me.” He returned to the scope on his rifle and looked at The Hulk. Slowly his finger curled around the trigger. A hideously bloodthirsty smile curled his lips as he whispered; “The man who killed The Hulk. I kinda like the sound a’that…”

Annabel threw up one hand, the other remaining on her hip. The air around her shimmered as if intense waves of heat were suddenly radiating from her. The waves thickened, coalesced into silver blue concentric circles of power that contracted into her hand and then was discharged in a solid beam of pure cosmic power.

The Hulk was outlined in a furious silver blue aura. Annabel’s laughter filled the air, along with The Hulk’s bestial howling.

The silver blue corona of energy faded. And The Hulk was still standing there. The flesh of his shoulders, upper arms and thighs were liquefying, running down his chest and legs in thick, gooey green rivulets, thickly landing on the ground with sickening plopping sounds.

But with a grin of maniacal hatred, the Hulk steadily came on, his eyes boring into Annabel’s.

“Oh, I see… you wanna show me how tough you really are. Fine!” Annabel unleashed another cosmic bolt. This one slammed into The Hulk with the force of a runaway planet, pushing him across the plaza, digging a trench twenty foot deep and some four hundred feet long before The Hulk finally came to a smoking stop.

Annabel made a theatrical show of brushing her gloved hands free of imaginary dirt. “And that is most certainly that.” She turned to the Kwaidan Building, intending to go inside and render assistance to Felton and Ammo when The Dreadknight’s voice crackled in her ear; “Miss St. Cyr! Turn around!”

Annabel turned around and her eyes opened as wide as they possibly could in utter terrified disbelief.

The Hulk was rushing upon her, most of his body having been turned into a spongy, gelatinous ooze from her last cosmic bolt. But even so, The Hulk was healing even as he left huge, steaming pieces of himself on the cracked and broken concrete with ever thunderous footstep.

Hardbottle and Bullet emerged from the Kwaidan Building and ran toward Annabel, yelling for her to get out of the way.

Annabel threw up her hands to unleash another cosmic blast but The Hulk was on her, one massive hand reaching out to clasp both of her hands in his in that terrible, unbreakable grip.

The Hulk yanked her into the air and held her face close to his own, which looked like melting green wax. “Hiya baby,” The Hulk said as best he could with lips that dribbled like soft ice cream.

Annabel screamed.

Sgt. Phillips ran up to Lt. Ethan. “Sir, we gotta move in! That’s The Hulk over there!”

Lt. Ethan nodded. “And there’s a special government task force over there trying to capture him, Sergeant. We’re to stand down and let them do their job.”

“With all due respect, sir: bullshit on that. We’ve got a bunch of maniacs over there causing major property damage. What if the fight escalates and moves into residential areas?”

“Sergeant, you’re relieved of duty. Report back to-“

“Kiss my ass, SIR! I’m taking my men in!” Phillips ran back to where a phalanx of combat ready police officers, all in riot gear waited for orders. And Philips gave them one; “MOVE IN!”

“Let me GO!” Annabel howled as she twisted furiously. “Motherfucker!”

The Hulk laughed and Annabel’s bowels turned to ice. In panic she triggered her cosmic power, hoping to blast herself free.

Hardbottle and Bullet were knocked backwards and off their feet by the concussive wave of the explosion that blinded them. Jim Hammond was tossed like a discarded newspaper, tumbling over and over. His power was temporarily exhausted and there was nothing he could do to help.

The Dreadknight, flying overhead on his Hellhorse and Ammo, looking through his sniper scope were the only two who saw what happened:

Concentric circles of cosmic energy exploded from Annabel’s body, engulfing both her and The Hulk. Her screams and his laughter co-mingling in a hideous song of death as the plaza erupted upwards as if it were a giant pimple threatening to pop.

Then it collapsed back down on itself and the bubble of silver blue energy vanished.

The Hulk stood there, grinning like a mad demon. In his hand was a blackened, shriveled, twisted lump of flesh that had once been the gorgeous Annabel St. Cyr.

The elevator door swooshed open and Janelle Ban limped into The Zero Room. It wasn’t an especially large room but it was striking because the walls were a near blinding white. The room was as pristine as if it had just been built that morning. In the center of the room was a silver cylinder exactly five feet high.

Janelle limped over to the pole, leaving a trail of green blood that dribbled from her nose. She wiped at her nose and with the clean hand flipped open the top of the silver cylinder. Inside was a keypad but the numbers and letters were not of any language on Earth. It was in Zihot, one of the primary languages of K’ai. By using this alien language, Janelle insured that no one besides her could activate The Zero Room.

She punched in a series of numbers. The silver cylinder hummed in response. Janelle closed the lid and watched as the cylinder descended into the floor. A wave of gamma energy emerged from the hole and crawled along the floor, walls and ceiling until The Zero Room was entirely green.

Janelle Ban raised her arms and moaned in almost sexual pleasure as the gamma radiation washed over her.

And The Zero Room vanished in a tidal wave of green.

Ammo watched through the sniper scope as The Hulk contemptuously tossed away what was left of Annabel St. Cyr and looked around. Spying the powerless Jim Hammond, The Hulk stomped toward where he lay. His liquefying flesh was thickening as his healing factor kicked in full force. Tremendous thews and muscles reformed. The Hulk roared.

Ammo briefly turned the scope to look at the still smoking remains of Annabel St. Cyr. “What a waste of some fine ass,” he muttered before training the sight back on The Hulk. Hardbottle’s voice shouted in his ear; “What the fuck you waitin’ on, Ammo? Take the shot! TAKE THE SHOT!”

“Anything you say, boss.” Ammo aimed carefully, the crosshairs on the sight fixed solidly right between The Hulk’s eyes.

And then Ammo squeezed the trigger.

NEXT ISSUE: All I’m going to say is however you think it’s going to end, you’ll be wrong. Come on back for the conclusion of “Come Together” and see for yourself.