It took a lot longer than Bruce had hoped but here he was in the Adirondacks in New York, Rick Jones was somewhere in the region. He wanted to avoid putting Jones in any more risk than he needed to but Bruce needed somewhere to rest before getting to New York the next day. The plane left him standing in the middle of nowhere and he started walking along a road, it started raining after an hour or so and the walk turned into a slog. He read a sign that pointed him toward the town of Lake Placid. He sighed and followed the road for a few hours until a semi-truck driver decided to stop and give him a ride into town and enough money to get himself a meal. Bruce walked into a small diner in the center of town, he ordered a cheese burger and fries.

A young man pulled up and jogged into the diner "Hey Rick, want the usual?" the only waitress working asked as the man sat down at the bar.

Rick was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an old varsity jacket from what Bruce assumed was his high school. Bruce looked him up and down wondering how many Ricks could live in this area. "Yes please" he said in a voice that Bruce recognized immediately. Rick looked right at Bruce and smiled before turning his attention back to looking into the kitchen.

Bruce finished his food and got up and moved to stand right next Rick and pay his bill to the waitress and looked at Rick while he was waiting. Rick turned to look at him and smiled before turning his attention away. Bruce watched carefully as Rick's eyes got big and he turned to look at Bruce again with his jaw hanging open. "Hi Rick" Bruce said as Rick looked him up and down.

"Bruce, your actually here" he replied.

Bruce nodded "Well, that was the plan."

"Yeah, but that was still a few days away I thought Carracus must have pulled extra strings. Okay, let me get my salad to go and we can head to my place and get you set up" Rick explained calling the waitress over to get his order to go and Bruce headed out to Rick's car. Rick pestered him with questions after he started driving them to his home that was out of town which Bruce was quite happy about.

After about twenty minutes Rick pulled into a drive way and parked in front of a beautiful cabin that overlooked a lake. Rick explained that his family had lived in the house for several generations but he started living there after college when his parents moved to Florida. The cabin smelled like a college dorm when he opened the door with energy drinks and bags of chips covering different parts of the floor. There were family pictures lining the walls and a computer station in the corner next to a set of glass doors that led to a balcony that provided a great view of the lake. Rick pointed him to a guest room where he could rest "Give me a day or two to check the situation in New York and figure out how hard it's going to be to get you into the city."

Bruce nodded and sat down on the bed as Rick went to his computers and started working on getting Bruce into New York.

Samuel Sterns was in his apartment lab going through the newest numbers that his research on Banner's cure was giving him. He needed a blood sample to really prove that the cure could work but his simulations seemed to show a lot of promise. Sterns was a smaller man who had spent his entire life experimenting with anything and everything he could and now here he was experimenting on something that could change the world completely.

Sterns got up and looked at his test subjects, the cure was going nicely but perfecting the proper dosage in create a similar reaction was the true test of his genius. The rats he brought from his lab at school would react in a very poor way to the serum he was working on using Banner's numbers, he knew he needed a blood sample for the possible cure but also to see what made Banner so special. "Has to be something in his DNA that allows the Gamma radiation to unlock the latent potential of the host" he said to himself as he sat down with a cup of coffee.

Talbot entered the lab area in the base where Ross had set up shop for his little experiment, he scanned the room and could see Ross talking with Blonsky in the corner. Talbot started making his way towards the duo, Blonsky still had barely spoke to him about the operation despite Talbot now being a part of it. Ross had kept him in the dark too but he had given him some details but Blonsky's hyper focus on Banner was giving Talbot the creeps. He had done some digging after they had started setting up the lab for use and discovered that Blonsky was one of the top Black ops agents around the world over the last few decades.

Blonsky was being told how the procedure would work but he wasn't listening, his focus wasn't even on Banner it was on the beast that was trapped inside him. Blonsky had been dreaming non-stop of the monster since Panama, he was going to kill him no matter what it took. Ross must have had this in mind before since he seemed to come up with this idea rather quickly, Blonsky was shaken back to reality by Ross who asked him if he understood everything that had been explained to him. Blonsky nodded and laid down on the gurney as he was taken in for treatment.

Ross watched as Blonsky was rolled into the treatment room and Ross entered the observation room next door and found himself being followed by Talbot. "Sir, I would like to talk to you about this operation and where the next site will be?"

Ross sighed heavily he never intended to include Talbot in this operation but his closeness to Betty and her closeness to Banner made him a commodity that Ross could not afford to ignore. "Where ever Banner appears next is where Blonsky and our team will be deployed and we will take Banner alive." Ross could see that Talbot was going to request joining the mission full time and Ross didn't particularly like the idea but keeping Betty close was key not only for the mission but also for Ross to keep an eye on her as her father. "I would expect that you would join us whenever we move out Talbot, I think you could prove quite useful."

Talbot smiled having gotten what he wanted without even having to ask for it "Thank you Sir, I won't let you down." Talbot turned and began walking out of the room leaving Ross and Blonsky to their work. He was almost out of the area when the screaming started from inside the treatment room.