Previously on Hulk vs. Death Claw
Derek heard him before he saw him.
Footsteps on soft ground, moving with the careful placement of someone who knew they were being loud and was trying not to be. Coming from the north, along the ridge line. Derek stopped walking and waited, letting the marsh tell him the rest. Single person. Average height by the sound of the stride. No gear rattle beyond a soft pack shifting against a spine.
He stepped behind a cypress trunk and watched the tree line.
The man who came through was lean, middle-aged, wearing a torn shirt and mud-caked boots. He was carrying a pack across one shoulder and moving with his eyes on the ground, reading the destruction the way someone reads a map. He stopped at the edge of the collapsed channel and looked across it. Took in the cratered earth, the downed trees, the starburst fractures running through the bank.
Derek stepped out from behind the cypress. “You were here last night.”
The man looked up. He didn’t reach for anything. Didn’t run. He held very still, the way someone holds still when they’ve learned that sudden movement has consequences.
“So were you,” the man said.
Derek crossed his arms. “I’m going to need more than that.”
The man set his pack down slowly. “Bruce Banner. I’m a physicist.” He paused. “I was tracking a biological anomaly from the LC-7 pulse. I didn’t expect to find this.”
Derek looked at the clearing around them. Three collapsed channels, cypress down in every direction, the ground split open in long jagged lines. “What did you expect to find?”
“A lab accident. Something containable.” Banner looked at the destruction again. “I was wrong about that.”
Derek studied him. The torn shirt. The mud. The way he was standing, weight slightly forward, like a man who’d woken up somewhere bad and was still working through the implications. His scent was strange. Clean underneath the marsh smell, but with something else underneath that. Something chemical and deep that Derek couldn’t place.
“You know about Helios,” Derek said.
Banner looked at him. “I pulled their procurement logs three weeks ago. They’ve been sourcing biological material from this region for over a year.” He paused. “You know about Helios.”
“I know something’s been operating in that wetland. I know it’s not registered anywhere public.” Derek unfolded his arms. “Derek Brown. I work with Bayou Mounds PD on special cases.”
Banner nodded slowly. “The infected population.”
Derek didn’t answer that.
“The biology I found in this clearing,” Banner said. “It’s not gamma science. It predates anything in my databases. Whatever organism left those samples behind, Helios has been working with its protein sequences in a controlled environment.” He looked at Derek. “You know what it is.”
Derek was quiet for a moment. “I know what it is.”
“Then you know what they’re building.”
The Helios facility sat quiet in the early morning light, its perimeter fence running clean lines through the wetland brush. Inside the main lab building, the overnight damage had been cleared. The broken equipment from Kellner’s unauthorized trial was gone. The walls had been scrubbed. New instrumentation occupied three of the four benches along the east wall.
Bright stood at the window that faced the marsh and watched the tree line.
The door opened behind him. He didn’t turn around.
“Striker,” he said.
“Dr. Bright.”
Raymond Striker crossed the room and stopped six feet back. Thirty-two years old, bald head, lean through the shoulders in the way that came from specific training rather than general fitness. Two hundred thirty-five pounds that didn’t announce itself until he was standing next to something for scale. He held a tablet against his side, screen down.
“Both signatures are confirmed in the marsh,” Striker said. “My team tracked the gamma signature east toward the parish road. The Lycan signature went north toward the city.”
Bright turned from the window. “Separately.”
“Separately.”
Bright walked to the center bench and picked up a printout of the LC-7 dispersal map. The pulse had gone four miles in every direction. Sixty percent of the batch intact. Kellner had cost them the other forty and cost them the controlled introduction they’d planned, but the result was the same. Both subjects were now biochemically marked. The modified tracking compound in the LC-7 dispersal had bonded to both biological signatures at the cellular level. They could find either one anywhere within a twelve-mile radius.
“Phase Two,” Bright said.
Striker set the tablet on the bench, screen up. The display showed a site map of the marsh with two blinking markers. “Gamma dampening emitters are staged at four positions along the eastern channel network. The chemical suppressant array is ready for deployment along the northern approach.” He pointed to the map. “We run simultaneous operations. Different teams, different vectors, same window.”
“How long to execute from authorization?”
“Seventy-two hours to full deployment. Forty-eight if you want to accept more exposure on the perimeter approach.”
Bright looked at the map. The two markers pulsed at separate positions, miles apart, both moving slowly. Both unaware.
“Seventy-two hours,” Bright said. “I want the perimeter clean.”
Striker picked up the tablet. “There’s one complication.”
Bright waited.
“My team flagged two civilians in the destruction zone this morning. One female, law enforcement. One male, unaffiliated.” Striker pulled up an image on the tablet and set it back down. Derek Brown, photographed from the marsh tree line, standing at the edge of the collapsed channel. “He’s been in the zone twice. He knows the infected biology.”
Bright looked at the photograph for a moment. “Monitor him.”
“And if he gets close to the facility?”
“Then he becomes your problem to manage.” Bright walked back to the window. “Phase Two is the priority. Everything else is secondary.”
Striker took the tablet and left without another word.
Derek found Banner crouched at the edge of the southern channel, running his equipment over a section of collapsed bank. The analyzer was small, the size of a paperback, held close to the soil. Banner looked up when Derek approached.
“Helios isn’t just a research operation,” Derek said.
Banner stood. “No.”
“They’ve been sourcing from infected civilians in this city for over a year. People who don’t know their biology is being used.” Derek looked across the destroyed clearing. “I’ve got a contact with DOD history who’s been tracking the sourcing noise. He can get us facility intelligence.”
Banner was quiet for a moment. “What kind of facility intelligence?”
“Perimeter layout. Internal sensor grid. Access points.” Derek looked at him. “Enough to move on it.”
Banner picked up his pack. “I’m not law enforcement.”
“Neither am I. Not officially.”
Banner looked across the clearing. The destruction ran in every direction, channels collapsed, earth fractured, cypress down. He’d caused most of it. He knew that. The rest of it belonged to something that was still out in those wetlands, and whoever was running the Helios facility wanted both of them contained.
“Your DOD contact,” Banner said. “How fast can he move?”
“I’ll call him today.”
Banner nodded once. “Then let’s see what he has.”
Derek pulled out his phone and started walking north toward the parish road. Banner fell into step beside him, the analyzer packed away, both of them moving through the ruined marsh toward the city.
Disclaimer Statement: The Incredible Hulk and all related characters are the property of Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. This story is an independently produced fan fiction created by Dee Watts. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Marvel Entertainment or any of its subsidiaries in any capacity. All Bayou Blood characters, locations, and story elements are original intellectual property owned exclusively by Dee Watts. This work was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.
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