Hulk Peter David (best motivational novels txt) 📖

even an experienced scientist might have envied, provided that experienced scientist wasn’t busy getting his face kicked in.

Talbot had studied the records concerning Bruce Krenzler, aka Banner, far too thoroughly to be engaging in such brutality simply for its own sake. Granted, he was enjoying it, but that was merely a bonus. The bizarre incidents involving young Banner’s form had involved, according to all evidence, stress situations—so much so that Banner himself, in his psychological development, had locked away anything in his makeup that might trigger a response to stress. Now, though, the course of events had taken on a life of their own. Talbot had helped set the roller-coaster in motion; all he had to do was hold on for the ride.

He began to worry, though, that Banner might lapse into unconsciousness rather than provide him with what he wanted. So, satisfying himself with a final kick, he removed his foot from Banner’s face. Bruce rolled over in pain, and propped himself up.

“Talbot—” he grunted through swollen and bleeding lips.

Talbot raised an eyebrow, amused. “Yes?”

“You’re making me angry.”

And Talbot really, really wanted to laugh at that. “Oh, am I?”

Banner managed a pained nod, then made what undoubtedly passed for a threat when coming from a ninety-pound weakling who was literally getting his head kicked in.

“I don’t think you’ll like me when I’m angry.”

At which point Banner staggered to his feet, and Talbot took a quick step forward to drive a punch into Banner’s gut.

It didn’t land.

It was at that moment, that terrifying moment, as Talbot found his fist immobilized by a strength that dwarfed his, and was only growing exponentially with every passing second, that he fully and truly appreciated the wisdom of the old axiom: “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”

. . . Hurt me hurt us hurt me pain make him pain hurt smash crush him let out out get out smash yes yes . . .

As the sweat poured down Banner’s body, it soaked his shirt, and then the shirt ripped and there was

. . . pain so much pain good out stretching bending ripping rip tear smash . . .

exhilaration and a feeling of release, and Bruce Banner was a man who had been blind his entire life and was suddenly blessed with vision, and it was a vision filled with rage and anger and joy and lust and fury, pure unbridled fury, a volcano of fury exploding, an ocean of fury that wouldn’t be held back anymore, and there was Talbot shaking and clearly terrified and he didn’t matter anymore, nothing mattered anymore except

. . . Betty . . .

and the name, that name slammed through the pain, cut across the hot wires of Banner’s wrath like a great pair of pliers, giving the transformation form and purpose and direction.

. . . smash him smash SMASH . . .

Talbot, a grown man, was whimpering like a child.

For all his research, for all his conviction that he had covered all the angles and anticipated everything that could possibly happen, he had never come close to truly guessing just what it was that he’d had a hand in.

All at once, he had an inkling of what it was like for those first scientists testing atomic bombs, and coming face-to-face with the potential for unprecedented destruction they had helped unleash.

The major difference was, in this case, that the face involved was green and snarling and filled with undiluted rage.

The face still bore some resemblance to Bruce Banner’s, but it was widening and flattening out. It was like watching Homo sapiens devolve, tumbling down the evolutionary ladder and enjoying every rung of the plunge. There was rending and tearing of cloth, the shirt splitting down the back, the sleeves becoming mere rags. He’d been wearing a pair of sweatpants, and they at least were stretching somewhat, but the lower legs were being torn apart.

Banner was screaming, but it was hard to tell whether it was in pain or in release. His skin tone was changing completely, skewing from pink to light green and then to a deep jade. Insanely, he let out a loud, primal, vibrant laugh, then more screams of pain, more transformation, bigger, bigger, then a deafening roar.

Talbot hadn’t come straight to Banner’s home. He’d gone to the lab first, and he’d heard a word bandied about by some of the security guards. A word whispered in fear and dread by men who’d claimed they’d caught a glimpse of a slope-shouldered, slouching beast of a creature. Talbot had discounted much of it as fish stories, these tales of a hulk. He’d been sure that Banner had gained some sort of strength, undergone a transformation, but one had to allow for exaggeration even in the cases of eyewitnesses.

There had been no exaggeration. What there had been was the Hulk.

. . . kicked hurt hurt when kicked kick him smash kick . . .

Talbot fell back onto the couch, throwing his arms up as if such a pathetic defense could even begin to ward off the advancing green Goliath. The Hulk, not even slowing down, delivered a furious kick to the couch that sent it, and Talbot, crashing through the front window and out onto the lawn.

. . . out out Betty out . . .

Driven by imperatives he couldn’t begin to articulate or comprehend, the Hulk exited the house by the most expeditious means possible: He simply walked through the front wall. It didn’t slow him down for a millisecond. Wood and plaster shattered before him, sending debris flying everywhere, and then he stood there covered in white powder and howled into the darkness like a great primal ancestor of mankind, spat back up from prehistory.

The MPs barely had time to react to the sight of Glen Talbot making his explosive appearance on the front lawn, propelled via a couch, before they were confronted by a howling monster. It looked around with