Hulk, Peter David [best ereader for academics .TXT] 📗

“From Glen in exchange for sexual favors.”

“Betty!”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the abrupt purpling of his face. “I borrowed it from my friend Kelly, Dad. I promised her she’d get paid back as soon as you got past your hissy fit over my being accepted.”

“I’m a general in the United States Army, Elizabeth,” he said stiffly. “I’m not prone to ‘hissy fits.’ ”

“Dad . . .” She moved toward him, but didn’t touch him, for he stood so stiffly, radiating anger, that she was afraid to. “Dad, I want to be a scientist. Not an army wife. Not even an officer. I want to work for a private lab somewhere and do research and live my own life. Not your life, or the life that the son you never had might have lived. I’ve been offered a scholarship; my way will be paid. They’re that impressed with me.” She paused, and then added in a small voice, “Why can’t you be?”

A long moment passed between them, and she could almost sense him pulling away from her.

“Do what you want,” he said finally, and turned and walked away without saying anything further.

It was the last thing he said to her for more than half a decade.

Bruce Krenzler lay on the floor of his room, stacks of books spread around him, reading. He looked up as his mother entered and dropped down on the floor beside him.

“Hey, Mom,” he said.

Monica Krenzler surveyed the apparent disorganization of the room. It was a stark contrast to Bruce’s usual tidiness. “Bruce,” she said, sighing. “Already off to college.” She ruffled his hair and said, “I’m going to miss you terribly. But someday you will be a remarkable scientist.”

And Bruce, seeing an opportunity, asked, “Like my father?”

Slowly she removed her hand from his hair, and to Bruce it seemed as if the temperature in the room had dropped. “Do you remember him?” asked his adoptive mother, and there was a certain amount of caution in her voice.

“No, but you said once that he was a scientist,” said Bruce.

“Did I?” She seemed surprised that she had done so, and searched her memory. Then, very casually, she said, “I must have been guessing, seeing how brilliant you are.” She studied him thoughtfully, and then she leaned toward him. “Someday you will discover there is something inside you so . . . so special, some kind of greatness, I am sure. Someday you will share it with the whole world.”

He hugged her tightly, and thus was unable to see the narrowing of her eyes, and the curious combination of sadness mixed with quiet and distant contemplation, as if she were perceiving Bruce not as a loving son departing home but as a project that was entering a new stage.

repression

The cabin had seemed the ideal place for a getaway.

Betty had talked about it any number of times. Her father had built it with his own hands, and it held many fond memories for her of when she was a little girl playing hide-and-seek under the porch. The Ross family had known their happiest times here.

But after Betty’s mother passed away, Thunderbolt lost his taste for the cabin. Betty had always surmised that it no longer held any joy for him, because all he did was associate the place with his late wife. It was understandable. Her mother had decorated every inch of the cabin, and although that sort of presence was a comfort for Betty, her father obviously found it disconcerting, even sad. At one point he had simply told Betty that she should consider it hers from now on, for he had no more use for it and it was a shame to let it go to waste. She had taken him at his word, and now she had brought Bruce here to spend the weekend.

Now in her late twenties, Betty had grown into a beautiful young woman who was—painful for her father to admit—the image of her late mother. When she spoke it was with quiet confidence, and when she moved it was with a dancer’s grace, even though she had never actually taken lessons. And the most charming thing about her was that she had no idea just how stunning she really was.

All she knew was that she wanted the weekend to be perfect. The only problem was she’d been working like a maniac at the lab to try to clear the time for their weekend expedition, which for most people wouldn’t have been a problem, but Betty tended to work hours that bordered dangerously on 24-7. She felt exhausted. Her hair, she believed, was matted and disgusting, and ordinary cosmetics couldn’t begin to cover the wan look of her face.

Both of them were dressed in outdoorsy camping clothing, plaid shirts, and pants with lots of utility pockets. Bruce and Betty posed in front of a camera that was perched on a tripod, and Betty—feeling anything but photogenic—gamely smiled into the camera in a way that she was sure was evocative of someone on death row maintaining a stiff upper lip. As the flash went off in her face, she could feel how awkward and disgusting she must look, and suddenly she was more self-conscious about it than ever before.

Bruce, displaying his customary obliviousness to anything that wasn’t practically shouted in his face, didn’t pick up on Betty’s discomfort at all. The light of the flash hadn’t begun to dim in her retinas before Bruce was already on his feet, approaching the timer.

“Let’s try another,” he said.

“No,” protested Betty. “I look tired.” She ran her fingers aimlessly through her hair, as if she could restore it to some degree of attractiveness through sheer willpower.

Bruce didn’t notice. He was far too engaged with the mysteries of the timing mechanism to care about something as mundane as his girlfriend’s feelings. Small wonder, she mused, considering how little his own feelings meant to him. So