Hulk Read Online Free PDF

than she was.
     
    Bruce Krenzler, hard at work in the lab at school, had his attention drawn away from the slides he’d been studying under the microscope by a specimen of a very different sort. Specifically, a lovely girl who had just entered the room and was looking shyly in his direction. Bruce became so flustered that he almost knocked over some test tubes, but caught them at the last moment and prevented a spill.
    Her name was Alice, and he had noticed her any number of times. She had never given him so much as the time of day . . . and that was literally true, because he’d asked her what time it was once or twice between classes, and she’d just breezed right past him. But now she was sauntering right over to him as if they were the best pals in the world.
    “Hi, Bruce. Whatcha doing?”
    “It’s cool. Uh, you can check out the DNA, you know, the proteins,” said Bruce.
    “Can I see?” asked Alice, sounding genuinely interested.
    “Sure,” he replied.
    Alice leaned in closely over the microscope and he became aware of the heady smell of her perfume. “You know,” she said, “I really get turned on by brainy guys.”
    Bruce stepped back, scarcely able to believe where the conversation was going. For years he had been gawky and awkward and utterly tongue-tied when it came to the opposite sex, and now this lovely young girl had actually noticed him and was being nice to him, and maybe they could go out some time and who knew what the possibilities might be, and this was just the most incredible thing that had ever happened to him . . .
    At which point, while stepping backward, he tripped and fell over a stool. He went down bruisingly with it, tangled in the crashing metal, and as he lay there in a heap, he heard a chorus of laughter. He twisted around to see a group of other students watching, and realized with rapidly burning anger that it had all been a setup, that Alice had been coming on to him for the amusement of some of her friends.
    “Poor Bruce,” said Alice, and she was laughing the hardest of all. “You’re such a nerd.”
    Bruce’s face filled with anger, then his whole body started convulsing. He grabbed the side of the table, lifting himself up, and, flailing, scattered everything, including a lit Bunsen burner. The burner struck the spilled liquid from one of the test tubes, which just happened to be alcohol, and immediately ignited it. A fire roared to life in a heartbeat, and the others ran screaming from the room.
    Bruce staggered to his feet, staring at the fire, and the burning was reflected in his eyes as his body started to convulse again. He fought to contain it
    . . .
smash it, bad things will happen, smash it
. . .
    just as he always did, for reasons long forgotten but deeply ingrained. But the images of the laughing kids kept coming at him, and for once, just once, he wanted to cut loose . . .
    . . . and suddenly an automatic fire alarm started to clang. The overhead sprinkler system snapped on line, and cool water soaked Bruce to the skin, calming him. He stood there, letting it come, letting it extinguish the fire in front of him—and the fire within—at least temporarily.

desire
    Betty strode along the main Tarmac of Desert Base. A typical blast of heat rolling off the desert hit her in the face, but she had readapted to it by this point. Her father came right after her, shouting, “Hold it right there, young lady! We weren’t finished talking!”
    She moved with the coltish grace that had become hers as she hit her late teens. She was clad in tight-fitting jeans and a Metallica T-shirt that her father absolutely despised, which was why she wore it at least twice a week. Some passing soldiers glanced at them, and Betty snapped off, “Eyes front, soldiers!” They promptly found something else to be interested in as Thunderbolt Ross came up behind her.
    “I said we weren’t finished talking!” he snapped at her.
    She turned and looked him angrily in the face, making