DILIGENCE

By Derrick Ferguson

The night sky over San Francisco was unusually clear and crisp, the sparkling stars twinkling with an unnatural sharpness as two men waited on the roof of a six story brownstone that while appearing to be just another Haight-Ashbury residence was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse on loan to the two men while they were attending to their business here in San Francisco. And part of that business was a meeting that had been insisted upon by a third party.

This third party dropped out of the sky like a blazing comet. A man shaped comet, wrapped in a sheath of orange-yellow fire that left a blazing trail across the star splashed sky and plummeted toward the roof in what surely must be a kamikaze dive. At what seemed to be the very last second, the man-shaped comet swerved upwards and landed on his feet. The crackling flames sheathing his body spiraled up and away, revealing a muscular blond haired man garbed in a skintight costume of red and yellow. Jim Hammond, The Original Human Torch glared at the smaller of the two men and his voice was not friendly as he said, “You and I need to talk, Hardbottle.”

Lt. Colonel Felton Hardbottle lit up a Newport and inhaled deeply. “Glad to see you up and around, Hammond. Heard your batteries ran out of power. Or something along those lines.”

The bigger man standing slightly behind and to one side of Hardbottle chuckled. Jim Hammond frowned as he took in the measure of the giant. The man was easily ten or eleven inches over six feet and looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pounds. But despite his bulk there was something about the way he held himself that indicated to Jim that this giant was not someone to be underestimated. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” Jim said to the giant.

It was Hardbottle who answered. “Meet my bodyguard, Agent Bullet. Bullet, this is Jim Hammond, The Human Torch.”

Bullet nodded. “Pleasure. You and your teammates do good work.”

Now it was Hardbottle’s turn to chuckle. “Wrong Torch, Agent Bullet. You’re thinking about Johnny Storm. This is the Original Human Torch. The android one.”

“Oh?” Bullet looked Jim up and down as if he were a new and extremely interesting species of insect. He shrugged. “My bad.”

Jim turned back to Hardbottle. “You’re going after The Hulk. I’m in. Effective immediately, I’m on your team.”

Hardbottle’s head jerked back in surprise. “Now, hold on a sec, firecracker. First off, all I asked you to do was to locate The Hulk for me. You did that. Then you exceeded the parameters of what I asked you to do. You were just supposed to find The Hulk for me and that’s ALL. No, you had to play the hero and take him on yourself. And The Hulk then proceeded to wipe up the desert with your artificial ass. How long did it take you to recover from your fight with him? Ten, twelve hours?” Hardbottle stepped closer and blew cigarette smoke in the android’s impassive face. “You put the combined defensive forces of The United States on red alert because we thought somebody had set off a miniature nuclear device in the desert and after all that, you STILL weren’t able to kill The Hulk. The only body that was found was yours and if it had been left up to me, firecracker, they’d have left you there.”

“You quite finished, Hardbottle?”

“Yeah, I’m done. Like you said yourself, Hammond…I need more than one old android who throws fireballs to catch The Hulk.”

Jim gestured at Bullet. “Like your friend here? What makes you think he’ll fare any better against The Hulk than I did?”

“You wanna try me yourself and see what I got?” Bullet replied with a grin, folding meaty arms across his barrel chest. “C’mon and dance with me if you wanna.”

“No need for that, Agent Bullet.” Hardbottle said, holding up a gloved hand. “Hammond’s got no juice here. His reserve Avenger status doesn’t mean shit to me. My orders come from The Vice-President of The United States himself. So you can’t pull rank on me.”

“I have no intention of doing so.” Jim cocked his head to one side, smiling broadly. “You might want to get out your cell phone. It’s about to ring.”

Hardbottle frowned. “What kind of-” from the inside pocket of his trench coat, his cell phone bleeped for attention. With a wary eye on Jim, Hardbottle fished out his phone and opened it. “Hardbottle.” He answered. He listened for maybe five seconds and then he automatically jerked to attention. “Yes. Yes. I understand. Confirmation received and understood. Yes. I’ll wait.” Hardbottle glared at the widely grinning Jim Hammond as a new voice came on the phone.

“Hello, sir. Good to hear your voice. Yes, sir. Mr. Hammond is here with me now. Yes, sir. He has informed me that he will be joining my team. But sir, if I may…yes, sir, I know that Mr. Hammond is a highly decorated and respected veteran of World War II. Yes, sir…yes, sir, I recognize the fact that Mr. Hammond has been a national hero for over 50 years….no, sir…yes, sir…I serve at your pleasure, sir. Thank you, sir.” Hardbottle closed up his cell phone and stowed it back into his pocket.

“Who was that?” Bullet asked his bearded face confused.

It took Hardbottle a second to control his anger before he could answer. “By order of The President Of The United States, Mr. Hammond will be joining our team. I’m still in command of the mission to find The Hulk but Mr. Hammond will be observing and assisting at his own discretion.” Hardbottle’s gloved hands tightened into fists. He would have loved to wipe that smug grin off the android’s face, but Hardbottle knew when he was licked. “I didn’t know you knew The President, Hammond.”

“I don’t. I know his father.” Jim stepped closer and his icy blue eyes stared into Hardbottle’s hazel eyes with the intensity of a diamond-cutting laser. “And now that we’ve proven who’s got the bigger one, I suggest we get down to business and plan how we’re going to find The Hulk.”

Bruce Banner regained consciousness in much the same way he usually regained consciousness: in a strange place, naked and with only a dim remembrance of how he had gotten there. These days, since his dual personalities were more integrated, he had better memories of what happened when The Hulk took over, but during the entire trip to Washington State, The Hulk’s mind had been clouded with a insane red cloud of pure rage that was frightening in it’s homicidal intensity. Upon arriving in a dense forest, The Hulk had sat down to rest for a few minutes and that was all that was needed. Even the green goliath needed to sleep and once he did, his massive heart slowed, his entire system quieted down as the adrenaline-fueled rage subsided and once again, Bruce Banner returned to the world.

Bruce looked down at his hands. His skin was still the same emerald green as The Hulk’s. As a result of his battle with The Human Torch, his healing factor had been pushed to the ultimate to save his life and this was a side effect. Bruce had no idea how long this would last or if it were permanent. One thing was for sure; he couldn’t hunt down The Leader like this.

Bruce stood up, wrapping his arms around him, shivering like a wet puppy. Sunlight filtered in through the dense foliage overhead. He was freezing and his teeth were chattering. There was no telling how long he’d been lying on the cold damp ground and if he didn’t find shelter before night fell he would probably die from exposure. Bruce started walking. One direction was as good as another in a situation like this and in any case, if he didn’t find some form of shelter by nightfall, it wouldn’t matter anyway. He chose a direction and started off, picking his way carefully through the trees. Careful as he was, it wasn’t long before the soles of his feet were cut and he had picked up some pretty healthy cuts on his arms and legs as well. The deep woods were no place to go traipsing around with no clothes and Bruce ruefully thought that if he didn’t come across some form of shelter soon, he might very well bleed to death.

He wished that he still had the ability to change into The Hulk at will. If he had, it would have been a simple matter to have simply transformed into the emerald behemoth and leapt out the forest. Even if he had his medical kit he could have given himself a shot of adrenaline to trigger the change but due to the fact that The Leader had stolen everything from his lab…

The inner howl of rage from The Hulk’s persona was so loud inside his head that for a second, Bruce almost believed it had manifested itself as sound in the real world. The desire of The Hulk to lay great green hands on The Leader was so strong, so intense that Bruce shuddered as if in the grip of a terrible icy shower.

Suddenly, he stopped and squinted. He couldn’t be sure but it looked like…it damn well looked as if a cabin was not more than ninety yards ahead of him. It was hard to make out because of the rapidly approaching gloom of night as well as the cabin being the same colors as the trees, but…

Bruce sprinted toward the cabin, ignoring the branches tearing at his green flesh, paying no heed to the bright red drops of blood. Either there was a cabin there or there wasn’t. If there were, he’d soon have shelter, medical attention of some sort, warmth and hot food. If there weren’t, he’d be dead before morning.

Bruce burst into a clearing and his mouth stretched into a grin so wide his face hurt. It was a cabin. An honest to goodness log cabin that looked as if it had been built from the very same trees he’d been stumbling through for the past hour or so. He walked up the wide steps, wary and alert. God only knew how he was going to explain his appearance but the main thing was to get inside first and get warm and get some clothes and food. He’d deal with the rest later.

Bruce knocked on the door, yelling; “Hey, I’m lost and need your help! Open up, okay? I’m not armed and I’m not crazy, I promise! I’m telling you that up front so you won’t be surprised when you open the door-”

After a minute of that racket, Bruce seriously wondered why hadn’t the occupants opened the door? Bruce was banging and yelling hard enough to have alerted anyone inside and he was pretty sure that somebody who lived way the hell in the middle of God’s Nowhere wouldn’t be blasé about a stranger pounding and carrying on cranky right at their front door. Bruce stepped back and checked out the cabin with a more critical eye. No light shone through the windows. That in itself was odd. There was only the rumor of daylight left and surely anybody inside would have turned on at least one light in the room they were in. Bruce mentally said the hell with it and gripped the doorknob and it turned freely. As he figured, the door wasn’t locked. Why should it be?

Bruce’s hand patted the wall and found what he was looking for: a light switch. He flicked it on and stood in the doorway for a few seconds, trying to get a grip on his churning stomach.

Three bodies were in the living room. A woman and a small boy of maybe ten lay on the floor side by side. They might have been sleeping if not for the gaping bullet wounds in the back of their heads. It looked to Bruce as if they had been praying when the man who was sitting in a chair had shot them. A revolver lay on the floor not far from his right foot. He had shot himself in the temple. Bruce swallowed hard and closed the door behind him. First thing’s first. He stepped over the bodies of the woman and the boy and went in search of clothes and food.

Hardbottle looked up from his paperwork as Bullet literally squeezed through the doorway of the first floor office they were using. Jim Hammond had taken another office down the hall as his own. Hardbottle had been surprised by that as he figured that Jim would want to be as close to Hardbottle and Bullet as possible.

“How’s our ‘teammate’ settling in?” Hardbottle asked sourly.

Bullet shrugged. “He’s making phone calls. Tryin’ to get hold of The Fantastic Four or The Avengers for help.”

Hardbottle snorted with laughter. “Good luck. They’re too busy. There’s no glory or gravy in trying to capture The Hulk. They learned that a LONG time ago. Why d’you think poor bastards like me get stuck with the job?” Hardbottle motioned for Bullet to close the door and after the big man did so, Hardbottle said; “Look, we’ve gotta work with him but that doesn’t mean we tell him everything, you hear what I’m saying?”

Bullet nodded his massive head in assent. “Y’got no argument from me, man. I ain’t got much use for the spandex set anyway. Most of ‘em are a pain in the ass and there’s one or two I really wouldn’t mind jackin’ up permanently.”

Hardbottle raised an eyebrow. “Do I detect a personal grudge?”

Bullet’s face darkened. “One day when we got time I’ll tell you ‘bout it. Had some beef with a guy in New York likes to dress up like a devil and jump around on rooftops. But that’s in the past. Let’s concentrate on today.”

Hardbottle nodded in agreement. “I just got to pick up one more member of the team and then we’ll swing back to The Vault to collect Ammo and The Dreadknight.”

“Who you goin’ to get?”

“Remember that chick we worked with a few years back in Turkey? Annabel St. Cyr?”

“Sure. Only human being I ever met that could outdrink you. You mean she’s here in Frisco?” Bullet frowned, shaking his head slightly. “I wouldn’t have believed that the government would have ever let her out without a handler.”

Hardbottle chuckled. “How do you think they would manage to hold her if she didn’t want to be held?”

“Y’got a point there, man. Why would she wanta throw in with you and join the team?”

Hardbottle smiled and held up a piece of fax paper. “Because I’ve found the one thing on earth she wants more than anything else.”

“Her daddy?”

“Yup. Think that Annabel St. Cyr would be willing to go up against The Hulk in exchange for the opportunity to find and kill her father?”

Bruce had found a medical kit, cleaned and dressed his wounds. He found clothes he presumed belonged to the dead man in the living room and while they were two sizes too big for him, he made do. Wearing a couple of extra pair of socks took care of the problem of a pair of good solid hiking boots being too big. More importantly, he had found a map and consulted it while he watched the TV in what appeared to be the boy’s room. He was perhaps thirty miles from the nearest town and he figured that if he left by dawn and made his way to an access road and stayed on it, he’d be okay. There was still the problem of what to do about his green skin but he would check the woman’s store of makeup items. He was sure he could find something that would at least cover up most of his face while a cap or hat pulled down low and a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face would take care of the rest.

Once he came to a town of decent size, he could hack into an ATM and get what funds he needed to get himself to Seattle and gain access to even more money and buy the equipment he needed to find out what he could do about his skin condition and then resume his hunt for The Leader. Bruce got up and headed back into the living room where the bodies were. His first act had been to open the windows and let fresh air in. Now he wanted to know who these people were and why they had died such a lonely death so far from anything. Bruce searched the man and found a worn leather wallet with five hundred dollars in it. The California driver’s license said that the man had been David Columbo. Bruce also found something else: a neatly folded piece of white paper in Columbo’s pocket. Bruce unfolded it slowly and read the words printed neatly in the center of the page:

we bring our monsters with us everywhere

Bruce stepped away from the body of David Columbo who sat in such easy response, his head lolling on one side. His eyes were half closed and if not for the gaping exit wound in the side of his head, it would have been easy to believe that he had just fallen asleep in his favorite chair. The paper slipped from Bruce’s hand to the floor. Bruce didn’t even want to think about what monsters David Columbo possessed that had driven him and his family to this remote place and had at last persuaded him to take his life and the life of his wife and son. Bruce swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a few minutes while he controlled his churning stomach. Even after everything he had seen since that fateful day when he had been caught in the explosion of his gamma bomb, there was something profoundly disturbing about the grisly tableau in this lonely cabin. He found sheets in the master bedroom and covered them up. He would bury them in the morning and then take his leave.

The Leader wearily lifted his oversized head from his labors and walked slowly over to the long low metal table and thumbed the intercom, which had bleeped for his attention. “Yes, what is it now?” he asked. Even with gamma radiation enhanced stamina and endurance, going nearly 24 hours with no rest took its toll.

The female voice emerging from the intercom’s speaker sounding equally tired. “Have you anything new to report?”

“No. And how can you expect me to learn anything when you keep interrupting me every hour on the hour?”

“We went through a considerable amount of time, effort and risk to rescue you from The Hulk, mister. We expect results for our work.”

The Leader snapped; “If you had taken me directly to Serenity Base as I requested, I could have used the diagnostic labs there to make a proper examination of Banner’s equipment. The devices here are barely adequate-”

The female voice sharply cut him off. “You’ll have to make do with what you have. We can’t bring Banner’s equipment to Serenity Base and risk compromising the location of the project.”

The Leader snorted impatiently. “You think that Banner might have a tracking device of some sort on his equipment? Come now, we’re dealing with Bruce Banner here, not some agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Banner simply doesn’t think that way.”

“It’s not your call. It’s mine. The equipment and you stay right where you are until I’m satisfied that there is no way for Banner to track it and then I’ll have you brought to Serenity Base.”

“How long will that take?” The Leader wailed.

“I’m sending a scanning crew out to you. They should be arriving shortly. In the meantime, get back to work.” The intercom went dead and The Leader turned back to look at the booty that had been taken from Bruce Banner’s secret desert lab. Rows upon rows of machinery, all related to the practical application of gamma rays upon living human tissue. The Leader grinned despite his tiredness. There was a treasure trove here and he fully intended to exploit it all before his masters got their hands on it. After all, if he were the only one who knew how to operate this machinery, that would make him indispensable to them and secure his position. The only real fear he had was that The Hulk would find him. But he had a solution for that problem already. He walked over to a squat, blocky device with a parabolic dish on the front. This was a Gamma Radiation Projector, one of a number that Bruce Banner had used back in the early days when he had first become The Hulk. Banner had been able to control his transformations with these devices and The Leader patted the dish with genuine affection. He was determined to learn how to use this device as well as Jordan used a basketball because if and when The Hulk came after him, this device just might be the only thing that would keep The Leader alive.

The clearing in front of the cabin had something new added to it. Three fresh graves that had been neatly dug side by side complete with rough crosses made from long branches lashed together. Bruce Banner had taken most of the day to dig the graves and place the bodies within, and then covered them up. He then slept the whole night through and woke up the following morning at first light and left the cabin, heading for the access road.

But there was another who came to the cabin, his sensitive nostrils flaring as he walked toward the graves. He could distinctly smell the odor of death and as he stood over the graves, huge hands tightening into fists, his nose told him that the bodies of the three humans he had called friends were within. The new arrival ran lightly toward the cabin, his hooves clattering on the steps as he opened the door and once again put his nose to work. Packed with olfactory membranes, his nose was easily able to identify the odor of cordite. A gun had been fired here. And there was another odor as well. A human one. One he had not smelled before. So. A human had come here and killed his friends. The fact that he had the decency to bury them mattered not a whit to the new arrival. He went back outside and searched for fresh tracks and found them with frightening ease. He would find this human and kill him. Slowly.

He melted into the forest, his dark brown skin providing natural camouflage. The human would not see him until it was far too late.

Bruce was making good time through the forest. He liked hiking a lot. He found it helped to clear his mind wonderfully and he was busy making plans as to how he was going to find The Leader after he cured his skin condition. He supposed that if he really had to, he could call Stephen Strange for help. The Sorcerer Supreme was one of the very few people on Earth Bruce could truly trust to help him and he knew that all he had to do was ask. But he didn’t like to abuse their relationship and so only called on Strange in the direst of emergencies and the situation hadn’t gotten that bad yet-

-something slammed into Bruce’s back, throwing him through the air some fifteen feet before his crashed to the mossy ground, the wind completely knocked out of him. He struggled to draw in great gasps of air, trying to make his arms and legs work. He had hit the ground so hard that he couldn’t even move.

Terribly powerful hands laid hold of him and yanked him to his feet. The creature that had hold of Bruce was two or three inches over six feet and thickly muscled. Tremendous ropes of sinew bunched and coiled on the creature’s arms and shoulders. Its skin was a rich brown in tone, much like natural wood and thick curls of hair ran down it’s back like a mane. The most astounding thing about this creature was that from the waist down it had the legs of a goat, complete with massive hooves.

Bruce laughed crazily as he thought, Holy Jesus, I’m getting the snot beat out of me by a pissed-off satyr…is there anybody in the world with worse luck than mine?

The creature snarled; “You think it is funny to kill innocent people, do you? We’ll see how funny it is when WOODGOD shows you what your own liver looks like!”

The creature that called itself Woodgod flung Bruce away as if he weighed no more than a sponge. Bruce hit a tree and distinctly felt two ribs crack. He slumped to the base of the tree, holding his injured side and moaning in agony. This wasn’t funny anymore. This thing was going to kill him. At that thought, fear caused adrenaline to squirt into Bruce’s system and flooded his gamma radiation enriched cells. Bruce began to tremble all over as he felt the beginning of the transformation take hold.

Woodgod stalked toward Bruce, his face dark with rage. “It is too late to shake with fear now, murderer! You should have thought of that before you killed those innocent people.”

Bruce looked up and Woodgod halted in surprise. The shape of Bruce’s head was changing, growing larger, his already green skin darkening. And his voice was getting deeper and rougher as he said: “And you should have tried talking before laying your hands on me…I suggest you say goodbye to your ass now…because in another thirty seconds, you’re not going to have a lower jaw to do it with.”

And Bruce Banner threw back his head in a howl of jubilation as he let The Hulk take over.

NEXT: The Hulk and Woodgod resolve their differences in the only way that a pair of half-human monsters can while Hardbottle’s Hulkbusters pick up the last member of their team and hit the road. Plus: more on The Gamma Conspiracy…just who ARE these guys anyway and what’s their story? All this and more in HULK#7!