The Lab Tech

The Incredible Hulk/ The Wizard

by Susan Macdonald

Dr. David Banner walked alongside the highway. Well past lunch time, not yet rush hour. Traffic was light. He stuck out a thumb when cars passed him, but none slowed down. He wasn't discouraged. He was used to walking.

Finally, one car began to slow and pull over to the side. David rushed to meet it. Then he realized the car hadn't pulled over for his sake. It had a flat tire. A heavyset, middle-aged woman got out of the car and examined the tire.

"Hey, there. Need any help?"

"Don't need it, but I won't turn it down," the woman said. She could have been any age between forty and sixty-five. Her carroty-orange hair was blown askew by the wind. She opened the trunk. David helped her remove the spare tire and the jack.

For a moment he was attacked by an old memory - a rainy night, thunder and lightning - changing a car tire as he got soaking wet - turning into the creature for the first time after he hurt himself. Then he shook it off. This was another time, another place. He'd be careful not to get hurt, careful to keep his temper. He wouldn't let the creature escape his control again. Carefully, very carefully, he changed the tire for her. "There you are."

"Thanks," she said. "You got far to go?"

"Depends. Job-hunting. Once I find a job, I'll stop travelling," David said.

The redhead eyed him. Scrutinized him, actually. "You've been on the road a bit," she realized. And living rough, by the look of him. "I don't have a job to offer you, but I can take you home, put a home cooked meal in your belly."

David smiled. "I haven't had a home cooked meal in a while. Thank you, Miss -"

"Tillie Russell," she introduced herself.

"David Baxter," he lied.

They got in the car, and she drove him into town, chatting merrily of "shoes and ships and sealing wax." A jazz station was playing on the car radio. They started talking about the music, which segued into a discussion about the music of the Harlem Renaissance, which led to talking about the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, which led to a discussion of poet/civil rights lawyer Pauli Murray, which of course led to a discussion of defense attorney Gladys Towles Root, which naturally led to a discussion of Marvin Belli, which led to a discussion of Star Trek, which led to Blake's 7 which ... By the time she parked the car in front of a large, comfortable-looking suburban house on Elm Street, they were talking about Doctor Who.

"Simon, Alex, I'm home," Tillie called out.

Drums could be heard in the distance. The sound seemed to be coming from the basement.

"That's Simon. He always plays his drums when he's trying to think," Tillie explained.

"Your son?" David asked.

Tillie shook her head. "My friend. My employer, technically."

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Two men entered the room. One was younger than David, but could have passed for his younger brother: talI, handsome, dark-haired. The other was David's age: short, about four feet tall, red hair. David stared at the Little Person.

"Simon?" He was shocked to recognize the diminutive scientist. Simon McKay. Inventor. Weapons analyst. Toymaker. Puzzle-solver.

"David? David Ba-"

David interrupted him. "David Baxter. I used to be a lab tech for Dr. McKay."

Simon's eyes widened, but he did not betray the falsehood. He hugged his old friend. "We've got a lot to catch up on." He added in a whisper, "Especially why you're not dead."

"Later," David whispered back.

Simon released David from the embrace and introduced Alex. "This is my friend, Alex Jagger."

Alex extended a hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," David lied. One thing that being on the run had taught him was the look and feel of a cop, and with every fiber of his being, Alex's body language screamed LEO. As a law-abiding citizen, David had never given up the "policemen are our friends" belief his parents had instilled in him as a child. As someone who was legally dead, he'd found it wisest to avoid attracting the attention of the authorities.

"David helped me with a flat tire, and I was going to invite him to dinner as a thank you," Tillie explained. "Simon, why don't you show him where he can wash up, and I'll get started on the tetrazzini."

"Sure." Simon led the way to the bathroom. "Okay, what's going on? I read your obituary. You're supposed to be dead."

"An experiment went wrong. Very wrong."

"That's no explanation," Simon protested.

"The less you know, the safer you are."

"That's no answer." Simon had more curiosity than a dozen cats, and the stubbornness of three or four mules. David was well aware of this.

David sighed. Simon would pester him until he gave in. It would really help to have another scientist examine his problem, and no one was better at "asymmetrical thinking" than Simon McKay. "After dinner. When we can speak privately. It's a l-o-o-n-g story."

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Simon gave David the fifty cent tour of his lab, and discussed his current projects. Then Alex, Simon, and David talked about baseball until Tillie announced dinner was ready. The tetrazzini was delicious: a spaghetti and turkey casserole with mushrooms in a homemade white sauce. Conversation during dinner was pleasant, and jumped from topic to topic just as Tillie's conversation in the car had earlier.

After dinner, Simon announced that he and David wanted to catch up on old times in the lab. Tillie washed dishes. Alex went to watch TV.

Once they were comfortably settled in the lab, Simon demanded, "Okay, David, talk. What happened?"

"You've read Robert Louis Stevenson, haven't you?" David asked.

"Sure. Child's Garden of Verses, Treasure Island, Kidnapped."

"What about Jekyll and Hyde?" David asked.

"Haven't read it. Saw the movie. What does this have to do with -"

David took a deep breath. "I told you that an experiment went wrong. One person was killed. I was believed to be killed, and it was easier to let people thing I was, at least until I could learn to control this."

"This what?" Simon demanded.

"You ever read the grocery store gossip sheets? The National Inquirer, the National Register, Weekly World News?"

"Not if I can help it."

"Have you heard of the creature nicknamed the Incredible Hulk?"

Simon nodded. "Supposed to be some green giant the National Inquirer uses to sell papers, like Batboy or Elvis riding in a spaceship."

"He's real. He's me."

"What do you mean, he's you?"

"I was trying to tap into hidden strengths, the way some people can access superhuman strength in emergencies when others can't, like a mother lifting a car off her child. I found a statistical correlation with gamma radiation in sunspots as to when it occurred and when it didn't. I decided to bombard myself with gamma radiation." David paused for a deep breath, remembering the accident. "Due to a miscommunication, I didn't know that one of my lab techs had recalibrated the machinery, and I got hundred times the gamma radiation I had intended to give myself."

"David! You used yourself as your own guinea pig?"

David Banner, MD, Ph, D., physician, scientist, researcher, fugitive, nodded. "Stupid, I know. Nothing happened at first. Then I got frustrated, and then I hurt myself, and I learned that anger and pain ... cause a transformation. A metamorphosis. When I'm angry or hurt, I become ... the creature. My cognitive skills diminish. My strength increases. My healing speed," he shook his head, "the way I heal is like something out of a comic book. And, from the pictures I've seen, I grow and change color. Afterwards, I have no memory of what occurred. "

Simon swore softly, using a word he almost never said.

"Thank God, I have never killed anyone in that state. Elaina - Dr. Elaina Marx, my colleague - believed that it was like being under hypnosis."

"What do you mean?" Simon remembered Dr. Marx. She'd died about the same time David was supposed to have died.

"Theoretically, you can't hypnotize someone to do something that they wouldn't do when they're alert and conscious; you can make them cluck like a chicken, but you can't get them to kill if they wouldn't kill normally. Elaina said the creature was destructive, but not malicious. She said the creature wouldn't kill, because I wouldn't kill."

"That's a relief." Simon went to a mini-fridge, removed a Coke, and held it up for David to see. David shook his head. "So what are you up to? What are your plans now?"

"I'm trying to find a cure, a way to reverse this, or at least control it."

"What line of research are you pursuing?" Simon pulled the tab on can of soda and took a sip.

They discussed DNA and genotypes. They discussed gamma rays and other types of radiation. They discussed meditation and bio-feedback. By the time Tillie figured everyone had had enough time to digest dinner, and went to ask who wanted dessert, the two of them were on the computer, outlining hypotheses. And when they went upstairs for blueberry pie a la mode, Simon casually announced that David would be staying for a few days, to help him with his research.

Alex, the CIC agent assigned as Simon's live-in bodyguard, raised an eyebrow, but did not protest. Simon had a lot of friends, and if he wanted to invite one to stay a few days, he that was his privilege.

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"You don't need to wash dishes, David, that's my job," Tillie said.

"You did the cooking; I can help with the clean-up," David insisted. "My mother always said that no one ever died of dishpan hands."

"Simon hired you to work in the lab, not the kitchen," she reminded him.

"I work in the lab because it's my job. I help in the kitchen because I live here, and everyone in a family has chores. And," he kissed her cheek, "because you're a beautiful lady who works far too hard."

Tillie chuckled. "Speaking of working too hard, how's that computer game coming?"

"Well, after spending three weeks arguing with the programming, I think we finally have most of the bugs out of it," David replied. "Of course, we thought we had most of the bugs out of it last week, and we didn't."

"You keep at it. You'll get it." The redhead took it for granted that when Simon set his mind to something, he'd manage it eventually. She'd known the toymaker for years, since he was cabin boy on a freighter where she was ship's cook, and she trusted him wholeheartedly, whether or not she understood his experiments.

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Alex smiled and continued chatting about the Dodgers. His mind, however, was not on last night's game, but on the liar sharing a breakfast table with them.

He didn't know who David Baxter was. He knew Simon considered him a friend. He knew he was a competent lab assistant. He knew he had most of the virtues of a Boy Scout: friendly, courteous, helpful, etc. He also knew his name wasn't David Baxter.

"Please pass the syrup," Simon asked.

David handed the bottle of Mrs. Butterworth over to the inventor. Simon added a bit more maple syrup to his last pancake, making sure it was sufficiently drowned.

Simon reminded Alex of the Plastic Man cartoon his nephew used to watch a few years ago. Plastic Man's sidekick, Hula-Hula, had odd friends everywhere, in all walks of life. So did Simon. Alex hadn't said anything when he invited a former lab assistant to stay for a few days. But when a week had gone by and David was still there, Alex had begun making discreet inquiries.

According to DMV, Social Security, and various other agencies, there were several men named David Baxter. The man quietly eating pancakes across the table from him didn't match any of them. Alex had sent David's fingerprints to Washington, but it could take weeks - more likely months - to get a response. The FBI's fingerprint database was huge. Hundreds of police departments across the country didn't even have computers yet. And if David were a law-abiding citizen who'd never been arrested, never gotten into trouble, it could take forever to find out who he really was. As long as there was no intent to defraud, it wasn't illegal to change your name. In some states, you didn't even need to file any paperwork with a judge. Maybe his name was David Swine or David Uglee. Maybe he'd only been able to claim an inheritance if he changed his name to match some rich eccentric relative. But until Alex found out who David was, he couldn't trust him, no matter how likeable he was.

Simon had enemies. The KGB. Troyan. John Bradford Horn. Governments ranging from Libya to China to Bulgaria, mercenaries who would happily kidnap him and sell his brains to the highest bidder. People who wouldn't hesitate to use a charming lab tech against a scientist who habitually believed the best of people, who'd never consider that a friend could betray him.

Simon was trusting. Alex was not. The CIC didn't pay him to trust strangers.

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David swore softly. "Failed again."

"Remember how many times Edison tried and failed before he invented the incandescent light bulb," Simon said. "This experiment didn't work. It just means we try another line of research."

David glanced down at the computer monitor. "Good thing this was a computer simulation."

Looking at the predictions the computer gave, Simon nodded. Had they tried this experiment in reality, rather than as a computer simulation, David probably would have hulked out and destroyed the house. "Why don't we take a break from this and work on something else? That new board game, maybe? Or go to the beach and get some fresh air?"

David thought. The beach sounded good. On the other hand, it was games and toys that paid the rent and bought the groceries. "We should probably work on the new board game."

"We probably should," Simon agreed. "But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so let's go to the beach."

David smiled. "You're the boss, Dr. McKay."

"After you, Dr. Banner."

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At the beach, Alex divided his attention between watching Simon and watching pretty women in bikinis. The three of them rolled up their pant legs and waded at the water's edge. They joined a volleyball game. And they went back to Tillie with a good appetite for her fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits.

"I'm off to my bridge game," Tillie announced after dinner. "Don't bother waiting up for me. I may be late."

"Have fun," Alex wished her.

"Oh, almost forgot. You got some mail, Alex. It's on the side table." Tillie got her coat and headed out.

After dinner, Simon went back to the basement and banged on his drums to help him think. David washed dishes. Alex opened the envelope and read the contents. Then he slowly, carefully reread them. He glanced toward the kitchen door. He could hear water splashing as David worked. According to the report he'd received from the Pentagon, the fingerprints belonged to David Banner, who had spent three years in the army, then used his G. I. benefits to go to college. Dr. David Banner had died in a lab explosion eight years ago.

Maybe ghosts played volleyball on the beach. Maybe ghosts did dishes or computer programming. But Alex was sure ghosts didn't belch, and he'd heard David do that. Therefore, David was not a ghost.

So why was a scientist pretending to be dead? Why was he working as a lab tech for room and board? And was he a threat to Simon McKay?

"Dishes done," David announced as he joined Alex in the living room. He sat on the couch and picked up a book.

"What are you reading?" Alex asked.

"Swallows and Amazons," David replied. He was rereading the book for the third time. The new board game was based on the series of British children's books from the Thirties, and the more research he did, the better. Simon wanted the game to encourage imagination.

"Do you mind if I clean my gun?" Alex asked. Simon didn't like guns, so he normally took care of his weapons upstairs in his own room.

David shook his head. "The smell won't bother me."

Alex went up to get his cleaning supplies. He came down a few minutes later and began carefully disassembling his revolver. He laid some newspaper on the table; Tillie would kill him if he got the coffee table dirty. He cleaned each piece carefully, then laid them down on the newspaper to dry. As he worked, he glanced at David from time to time.

He liked David. He wanted to trust him. But a "dead" scientist pretending to be a lab tech - could David be a long term mole, planted and trained years ago just to get close to Simon?

The doorbell rang.

"We're not expecting anyone, are we?" Alex asked.

David set his book down. "Maybe it's Girl Scouts with Thin Mints?" He headed for the front door. Two men in gray suits stood on the front porch. "Hello, may I help you?"

"I certainly hope so. I'm Mr. Smith. My partner is Mr. Jones." He pulled a gun out. "Stay quiet, and no one will get hurt."

"Alex! Trouble!" David tried to shut the door.

Smith put his gun to David's head. Jones forced the door open.

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The man opening the back door moved quietly. Very quietly.

"Alex! Trouble!"

The man coming through the kitchen heard a voice cry out. He heard footsteps as someone (presumably Alex) hurried to the front door. He smiled. This would be too easy.

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"Alex! Trouble!"

Alex looked up when he heard his name. He glanced at his disassembled gun and swore quietly. He reached for his back-up piece, removing it from the ankle holster, before hurrying to the front door. "Simon, stay down."

Alex headed for the front door. He hoped that Simon had heard him over the drums; he prayed that Simon would stay in the basement, whether he had or not. Three men were coming in the front: two strangers in gray suits, one of whom had a gun to David's head.

"Federal agent," Alex identified himself. "Put the gun down."

"We're the ones giving the orders here. You put your gun down," Jones ordered.

"Not going to happen," Alex replied.

"Put the gun down, or your friend buys the farm," said the man with his gun to David's head.

Alex had to bite back the urge to scoff at the cliché. "Go ahead. You shoot him, that's one less bullet I need to worry about."

"We're not kidding," Smith told him.

"Neither am I. Sorry, David, but my job is protecting Simon. You're expendable."

David said nothing.

Alex heard something behind him. He turned his head, very slightly, so he could glance at the hallway door out of the corner of his eye. Another gunman stood at the doorway. Alex swung and fired at him.

The gunman fired back. Alex ducked. The second shot went wide, and David shrieked in pain as the bullet pierced his shoulder.

"Mind where you're aiming, Fred," Jones scolded.

The whites of David's eyes began to turn green. He started inhaling and exhaling, almost huffing and puffing. His muscles began to grow.

"No trouble, or you're dead," Smith threatened him. Then he took a good look at his hostage, and his eyes widened. Swearing, he released David and took a frightened step back.

The seams of David's shirt were stretching, tearing, as he grew. His skin was green. His body expanded: taller, broader, more muscular. Before their eyes, David transformed.

The Hulk raised his arm and backhanded his captor. The gunman fell to the floor. Given the nasty noise Alex heard as he landed, Alex suspected he'd have some broken bones. Meanwhile, Alex took advantage of the distraction to get off two shots. Jones collapsed, one bullet in his leg, the other grazing his arm.

Fred muttered, "Ain't getting paid enough for this," and ran back to the kitchen, moving as fast as he could toward the back door.

"David?" Alex asked tentatively.

The Hulk growled.

"I don't want to hurt you." Alex didn't think he could hurt the Hulk. He wasn't sure how much David could understand in this form. He hoped the gentle, calming tone of voice would get through to him, like talking to an animal.

The Hulk growled again, then turned and went through the door. He didn't open it first.

Alex swore softly.

"Alex, are you all right? Alex, what's happening?" Simon's voice was muffled. Alex could barely hear him, through the basement door.

"Stay down there!" Alex yelled. He opened Simon would obey orders, just for once. He grabbed Tillie's crocheting yarn and secured the two wounded gunmen. He checked the kitchen. The third gunman was long gone. He dashed up to his room, for handcuffs to supplement the yarn. Only once he had the prisoners secure, did he get the first aid kit and then and only then did he tell Simon it was safe to leave the basement.

"What happened?" Simon demanded as Alex bandaged the gunmen's wounds.

"Who sent you?" Alex wanted to know.

"Keep your mouth shut," Smith said.

"Troyan ain't paying enough to keep my mouth shut. He never said anything about going up against the Hulk," Jones complained.

"The Hulk?" Simon, to Alex's surprise, looked embarrassed rather than frightened. He lowered his voice. "Alex, where's David?"

Alex tilted his head at the shattered front door. "He left. Something you want to tell me about your pal, huh, Simon? Maybe something you forgot to mention?"

Simon wondered if David would come back after hulking out in front of Alex, or if he would go on the run again. He wondered if he'd ever see his friend again. Simon took a deep breath, and wondered how much of the truth to tell Alex.

The End