"No, David. The equipment's on the edge of overheating now. I'm shutting down." Elaina firmly tried to impose some order, some sense again on things. The last hour had been like driving a car down a mountain with the brakes out. Ever since David had convinced her reluctantly to try to recreate his experience, whatever that had been, things had gotten progressively crazier. They were making no progress at all, but there was a fragile desperation in him on his quest that scared her almost as much as the fact that his DNA had definitely changed.
Now, he let all of that tension and inner storm show for a moment in his voice. "What's wrong?" he demanded. "Why won't it work?"
"I don't know, but it doesn't," Elaine said with forced calmness. He was absolutely drenched in there by now, and even with climate control, he had to be getting cold. The last thing he needed at the moment was to get sick on top of whatever else he had done to himself. "Look, why don't you dry yourself off and get some fresh clothes out of the locker, okay?"
Reluctantly, David agreed, pushing back from the covered control console and squelching off. She gave a sigh of relief. Ignoring the DNA on the monitor behind her for the moment, she turned to needs that she could actually do something about, and while he was drying off and cleaning up, she made him a sandwich.
He picked it up, studied it like data in an equation, then put it back down on the plate. "Hey," she protested, trying to keep the tone light for him. "I made that just like when we were in med school. Extra mayonnaise and everything."
"I'm just not hungry," he said.
"Come on, David," she encouraged. "We've done everything we could figure to do."
"Yeah, I know." He sounded depressed again, and she studied him, wondering where on earth to go from here. Actually, now that she looked at him, he appeared not just upset but also exhausted. Small wonder. Whatever he had been doing last night, he certainly hadn't been sleeping, and getting shot itself was enough to jolt all the reserves out of anybody's system, even if he was healing up at an incredible speed.
"Look," she suggested softly, "why don't you lie down for a while? Get some rest?"
He didn't outright refuse, at least. "What about you?" he objected, his innate consideration pushing to the front.
"Oh, I'll lie down out here for a little while." The couch over against the wall would make a fine bed, actually a better one than he had available in the chamber.
"Yeah, okay." He sounded too tired to protest, his body weighing him down now that she had made the suggestion and drawn his attention to it. He stood up, then turned back abruptly after taking only a few steps. "Elaina." She was still there, hadn't yet turned away herself. "I'm sorry about all the hassle over this."
Elaina smiled, suddenly loving him even more. He was in one of the acute crises of his life at the moment, but he still took time to think of others. "David," she said, letting more feeling show in his name than she usually did. "Look, you may be in there alone, but we're in this together, huh?"
She did succeed in getting a weak smile in return. "As usual," he said.
"As usual," she agreed.
He stretched out his hand, putting it against the glass, and she touched it with hers. Their hands were remarkably close to the same size, hers large for a woman's, his a bit small for a man's. After a poignant pause, he broke the contact and turned away toward the sleeping platform conveniently placed right in front of the main viewing port. "Might as well leave my electrodes on," he said.
"Wouldn't hurt," she agreed.
"Oh, yeah?" He lay down. "When's the last time you wore them to sleep?" Elaina laughed, and he smiled back at her. "Could you turn out the lights, please?"
She went over to the panel, which had resumed normal readouts on the electrical system in there with David's quick repair work and a chance to cool down. After turning the lights off, she walked back to the viewing port, and he lifting a hand, waving. She waved back and then turned away, giving him some quiet time.
Elaina wandered a little restlessly around the lab, though staying out of the area immediately in front of the window so that hopefully she wouldn't disturb him. She checked the EEG, checked a few of the other instruments, and walked over to pour herself a drink.
Where on earth could they go from here? Two million units of gamma. It literally had changed his DNA, but what else had it done? How could she stop it? She wanted to try radiological reversal as the logical step, but this situation had never been studied, and there was no guidebook for it. What if that didn't work? What else was there to try? She promised herself never to give up. She would try to stay more objective than he was, but she would never stop trying to help him.
She had wandered back over to the console near the EEG, and abruptly, she heard the tracers speed up. She looked at them - definitely shifting into significant activity - and then headed on a beeline back to the window to look in at him. David was shifting, grimacing, his head turning on the small pillow. She saw his eyes move beneath the closed lids. "He's dreaming," she realized.
Back over to the EEG for another look. It was getting worse if anything. Reaching for the small recorder set out ready though so far unused, she decided to document this, the first changes worth noting in any of his monitors. It probably was just a dream, but she could at least share the data with him later. Who knew, maybe the alteration in his DNA had created some changes to the dreaming process that might yield some clues for them as to where to go from here.
She started dictating into the recorder, first stating the time, then describing the specific changes, forcing herself to be scientific and objective, though she felt her own heart rate increasing as she watched the EEG. This was no normal dream, not even a normal nightmare. This was off the charts. If this was what his sleep was like during nightmares, no wonder he looked unrested on the mornings after.
Then, abruptly, it stopped, the tracers all flatlining. Elaina started for the hyperbaric chamber, still dictating into the recorder. Maybe he had knocked the electrodes off in his agitation, but he had been the one to secure them in the first place, and she trusted his skill and thoroughness as a doctor. "Dr. Banner himself…"
Her voice died as quickly as the EEG leads had as glass shattered to her side and an impossibly large and impossibly green fist punched straight through the six-inch-thick glass. "David?" she gasped. The creature growled, snarling like a trapped animal as he turned his attack to another part of the hyperbaric chamber that was his prison. "David, is that you?"
The creature didn't respond to her voice, not by words nor even by look. Elaina was stunned at the obvious conclusion, but there was no sign of David in there now, and the creature was wearing what at one point had been David's pants, now straining to cover the rippling muscles on his massive body.
Slowly, her frozen brain lurched back into life. She picked up the recorder again. "It is now 4:16. Dr. Banner is no longer in the pressure chamber. He has metamorphosed into some extraordinary creature. He has just smashed the control console."
The creature continued his rampage through the chamber, and Elaina's eyes widened as he demolished the electrical box. At a distance, she heard her voice still documenting events. "He just took a direct 220-volt charge, and he's apparently unhurt. Oh, God. He's like some kind of child throwing some monstrous tantrum." The creature ripped the pipes down from the ceiling, and for the first time, she saw him flinch. Electricity might not have phased him, but the steam pipe did. With a howl of pain and rage, he launched his anger at the far end of the chamber, attacking the door. Elaina was still documenting everything, but part of her was comforted as she concluded, "It can't get through the hatch."
The green giant in the chamber immediately proved her wrong, hurling himself against the hatch, and the wall dented as he whirled to attack another window. Shattered glass rained around her, and Elaina jumped back. Up until now, her fear had been for David, but for the first time, the danger to herself crossed her mind as she kept recording. Unbelievably, the hyperbaric chamber, built to stand up against sea pressure, was yielding to this enraged assault. "It seems to be driven by this blind rage to escape," she concluded. Then came three small, soft words that acknowledged the inevitable. "It's going to."
The creature beat over and over against the side of the chamber, attacking it in pure rage, and the titanium buckled in response, grudgingly yielding. Elaina breathed her last recorded comment - "oh, no" - as the creature thrust himself through the gap in the ruptured chamber and reached the floor of the room. For the first time, he unquestionably noticed her. He stood mere feet away staring at her, his breathing heavy. Elaina carefully put the recorder down as she faced him. Her first impulse was to run, but if he was half as fast as he was strong, she wouldn't have a chance. He would be on top of her even before she reached the stairs. She summoned up her courage and spoke to him directly.
"David?" No response. The name meant nothing to this monstrous green hulk that faced her. His eyes were locked on her, and David's remark from back in her apartment suddenly made sense as she saw that the creature's eyes were white. Yes, incredibly, this was David somehow. In fact, now that she looked, she could see the faint mark of the gunshot wound on his left upper arm, although the bandage had obviously exploded off as the biceps at least quadrupled in size. The wound was almost healing as she watched, barely noticeable now, and she marveled at his metabolism.
It was David, yet it wasn't David. Those startling white eyes had none of David's intelligence, nor his compassion. Still, they weren't blank. Beneath the definite anger, she could see bewilderment in him, confusion. This thing had no idea what was going on and lacked even David's analytical ability to try to work it out. Elaina spoke soothingly. "It's all right. Take it easy. Nobody's going to hurt you, all right?" He watched her closely, still lost, but his breathing began to slow a little. Elaina raised her hands soothingly. "It's okay. It's okay. That's it. Can you understand me?" There was no intelligible response. "Can you understand me?" she repeated. "Can you speak?"
Nothing. His eyes were still fixed on her but with no recognition. He seemed totally lost, yet he was unquestionably calming down more.
He would not hurt her. The conclusion hit Elaina powerfully, rock solid in its conviction. This was David - well, part of David. Not his mind, but his temper, the embodiment of his emotions, and while he always had felt things very deeply, she knew that he was incapable of physically hurting her. She always had felt utterly safe with him, all the years of their acquaintance. No, this creature, this part of his personality that had split off, might throw a tantrum, might utterly destroy some thing, but not a person. Never a person. If it was in fact a piece of David, it was not dangerous to her.
Thinking of this being as David, at least partially, awoke her concern. She remembered how the creature had jumped when hit by the steam, how he had beaten the metal of the chamber apart with his bare hands. "Okay. Okay. Are you hurt? Are you hurt? Let me see your hands." She stepped forward, and the thing spooked, pulling back. "It's all right. It's okay. Let me see your hands." Slowly, she closed the distance between them a few steps until she could see his hands. They had blood on them. "Oh, dear. You are hurt, aren't you? All right. Stay right there. It's okay. It's okay.
The scientist in her couldn't resist the opportunity, and who knew, it might even be able to help them find a cure for - for whatever this condition might be. She reached to the side to retrieve a glass slide from her equipment, then stepped forward, very slowly. "Now, I'm just going to touch your hand a little. All right? Can you give me your hand?" She reached out, and amazingly, his hand did move slightly toward hers in response to her gesture. "That's it. I'm not going to hurt you. That's it. Easy." She pressed the slide against his hand. The creature spooked again, jerking away, and Elaina carefully set the slide with its precious blood sample safely out of the way, talking all the while. "Okay. Okay. Okay. Just stay right there. You're all right. You're all right."
With the blood sample secure, she turned back to him. Those disconcerting white eyes were still rivetted on her. It was the look of a lost young child. "All right. All right. Come with me. Can you come with me?" she urged. Stepping to the side as she held her hands out, she angled toward the couch. He matched her movements, not quite touching but never breaking eye contact. "That's it. Come on. Sit down. Over here. Come on." They were almost there, and she gestured toward the cushioned seat. "It's okay. That's it. That's it. Sit down. That's it. You're okay now." The creature sat down tentatively, and Elaina saw the couch cushions sink. Some detached part of her mind wondered how much he weighed. Probably at least twice as much as David. "You're okay," she reassured him. "You're okay."
He seemed much calmer now, sitting there, still staring at her. And then his face started to shift, his whole body changing. Elaina stared as within brief seconds, he once again became David, though still marked from his ordeal. He was still half naked, and his skin was glistening with sweat. David's brown eyes were as confused as the creature's had been, though much more aware and intelligent. "Elaina?" he asked.
She let out a heavy sigh, releasing the tension of the last half hour. "It's all right. It's all right, David. Just rest easy. You're back now."
"Back?" He looked around, bewildered, and then sat up straight as he stared at the wreck of what had once been the hyperbaric chamber. "My God, what happened to the chamber?" He came to his feet and took a few steps toward it, then turned back to her instead, his gaze sweeping her head to toe. "Are you all right? I didn't…"
"You didn't hurt me," she reassured him. "You could never hurt me, David. You know that."
"But what…" He turned back to the debris and walked over, picking up a chunk of several-inch-thick glass and studying it in disbelief. The huge footprint in the floor drew his attention, and he abruptly realized that he himself was now barefoot, although that massive footprint was twice the size of his own. "Elaina, what happened?"
She took a deep breath, wondering how on earth to begin. Just come out with the fact, she told herself. "After you fell asleep, you metamorphosized into a large green creature, and it destroyed the chamber trying to get out."
"I what?"
She spread her hands, trying to explain the inexplicable. "It was huge, a lot bigger than you are. I know exactly what happened to your clothes now." He looked down at himself, at the abused pants which remained and the absence of anything else. "The proportions were roughly the same as a man, but everything to a larger scale. Massive chest and biceps. The skin was green, and the eyes were white. It was absolutely enraged."
He looked at the chunk of broken glass again, then let it fall. "And it was violent."
"Yes," she confirmed, proceeding carefully now. She had to make this point crystal clear to him. "Against things. Against the chamber, but not against people. It never made any attempt to hurt me, and I even approached it to -" She looked back to the console, remembering. "The blood! It hurt its hands breaking the chamber apart, and it was bleeding a little. I took a blood sample with a slide."
David looked at his hands, which were indeed abraded slightly, but Elaina noted that the wounds already looked better than just a few minutes ago. "They're already healing," she commented. "This is incredible."
He looked at his left upper arm, tracing the bullet wound, which was now barely visible. "You said you took a blood sample?"
"Right." She walked over to the console and picked up the slide, demonstrating it triumphantly.
He shook his head in disbelief. "After you watched this thing smash the hyperbaric chamber to shreds, you just walked straight up to it and collected a blood sample?"
"I told you, he isn't a threat. Not to people. Yes, he scared the hell out of me at first, but once I realized that he wasn't going to do anything to me, it was all right." She looked at the slide, then at him. "Why don't you change clothes while I run some tests on this sample?"
"Okay," he agreed. "Good thing I picked up a few extra sets." He surveyed himself again, then the shattered hyperbaric chamber. "Elaina, what are we going to do? How do you treat metamorphosis?"
"We'll come up with something," she reassured him. "Go on, David. It's okay."
"For right now," he corrected. However, he couldn't argue with her suggestion. He headed off toward the locker, and Elaina turned to the blood sample, hoping desperately for some scientific clue here, some insight. How did you treat metamorphosis?
She had no idea.