Chapter 26: Hulk on vacation

Cerion checked himself on the mirror searching for any flaws. He once again adjusted his hair a bit and kept it swept back.

The drawback of having Kryptonian heritage is that he could not employ people to groom him for public events like this one. After all, how would he explain if a comb just snapped when the beautician decides his hair needs to be combed. He could withdraw his tactile kinetic shield but there was a chance he could accidentally lose control. Even if the chance was as low as ten percent he was not willing to take that risk, especially in the current atmosphere.

His interference with the 9/11 attacks had some unforeseen consequences. The good news is no one recognized him which was a plus point as he was nowhere near prepared for that kind of attention.

As for the bad news, some poor shmuck managed to film Cerion's heroic moment in saving the flight from crashing. And then the guy had to post it on YouStream which attracted all sorts of attention on the guy. Last he heard, the intelligence agencies were regular customers of the guy's home. On a side note, he acknowledge the video sort of made YouStream all the more popular among the general public. So, there was that unforeseen development.

The consequence of that video streaming all over the world was that people were now aware there are supernatural beings. The religious groups jumped right into the incident claiming God sent his angel down to protect the good people of Flight 93. Of course, these people get shut out once the question is raised why God never stepped in to save the other flights.

As usual, such cynical questioning never bothered the faithful as this incident was a sign of God. After a month of deliberation, even some members of the Catholic Church dived headfirst into proclaiming the miraculous survival of passengers of Flight 93 as a product of divine intervention. The obvious counterview to this view was the claim of alien intervention, which was true in this case. Unfortunately, that was not gaining much traction as the video feed that captured his heroic moment tended to favour the religious side.

It was certainly not something he did purposefully. He was sort of bathed in silver light when the video was taken. Unfortunately, the angle the video was taken made people see the light as wings.

Personally, he couldn't find wings anywhere in that video but the mind sees what it wants to see. The religious people wanted to see an angel and so they were seeing an angel with wings. It also didn't help the passengers of Flight 93 tended to credit their miraculous survival on God and his dutiful angels in heaven. Inadvertently, he may have renewed the Christian faith in the US which was already hosting a very strong religious majority.

But the ripples didn't stop there.

The two terrorists who hijacked the plane also survived and they also got an eyeful of his stunt. Rumour has it the two terrorists were being squeezed out of every iota of information by the intelligence community. Whatever intel the agencies managed to squeeze out they have so far chosen not to divulge to the general public. Although, there were rumours circulating and conspiracy theories were quite rampant.

The wide majority of the US was ready for war. They only needed an enemy to fight. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. But, with two terrorists captured and the subsequent investigations carrying out by the intelligence agencies it was only a matter of time before the US went to war. President Thicket had already made it clear in his address to the nation that those nations responsible for harbouring and aiding these terrorists would feel the military might of the United States.

"Sir, everyone's ready for you."

His assistant's voice cut through his musings.

"The stage is set?"

"Yes sir," Gavin affirmed.

"Just give me a minute."

Gavin nodded before closing the door.

Cerion looked himself in the mirror before taking a deep breath. He adjusted the best he was wearing over his blue shirt one last time. It was now or never.

"Everyone please welcome the CEO of Vex Corp, Mr Cerion Vex."

Cerion walked into the stage with a welcoming smile to the applause of many of those who were present in the gallery. There were even a few exciting whistles from the audience as well.

"Thank you for that warm welcome. And for those of whom who took the trouble to whistle, I'll keep this short and interesting. I guarantee you won't be bored to death."

There was a smarter of laughter from the audience and a few appreciative whistles here and there. It was always important to ease a crowd to attract their attention span. And seeing as he only had very few things to say and the rest was just a presentation he needed all the attention. On the screen, the symbol of Vex Corp was proudly displayed.

"Before I share with you the future of this company I'd like to introduce you to two new products."

Clicking on the remote in his hand the screen behind him shifted to show the image of a V-pod.

"You are all familiar with the V-pod, I assume. Well, it is my greatest pleasure to inform you all that the sales of V-pod have crossed one million mark as of today…just in the US alone."

There was applause once again.

"The lesson that we learned from the success of V-pod is that people love technology. The simpler and advanced it gets the better the reception will be. We are poised to corner the market and replace other competitors because our product is sophisticated and user friendly. So, keeping this in mind I'm launching a new product today."

The screen behind him flickered to show a thin metallic strip. On a further click on his remote, the metallic strip opened to show a screen.

"Meet Vex Corp's answer to increasing the collective computing power of the world. Meet SolPrime, the laptop that is going to replace your PCs simply because it outperforms any computer available in the market. With a V1 core processor and an OS of our own design, this laptop also hosts 2GB RAM with a 200 GB hard drive. You can also use the wireless earphones using Bluetooth connectivity and it has 4400 mAH battery."

He could see that he already gained quite a lot of attention. Now, it was time to draw in more customers with a few more flashy products that are about to enter the market. He took note of the cameras screening everything in the background. They were directly being live-streamed in YouStream. He also made a mental note to mention their compression algorithm that made live-streaming so simple and efficient.

Setting those thoughts aside Cerion went back to engage the crowd and dazzle them with more consumer goods.

XXXXXXXX

Bruce scratched his chin at the conundrum before him. He has been working out different angles in charting out a way to suppress his Hulk transformations but so far he came up with just a single option. The best bet was to convert all the cells in his body back to full human cells. This led him to design a virus that would destroy the anomaly in his cells.

It was a risky idea seeing as any virus that could kill Hulk cells would be dangerous to his other normal cells. So far, his attempts to make a virus that solely targeted the Hulk cells in his body was hitting several roadblocks.

Even so, he still managed to make a knock-off virus. Obviously, it was not perfect but he was nonetheless interested in seeing how it performed.

A drone took blood from his arm and passed the blood sample to the testing lab. The drone treated him with a brief blast of Vita rays that sealed up any discomfort he felt on his arm.

"Optima, are you ready?"

"Of course, Dr Banner. Testing Sample 1 of Project Green."

Bruce watched on in interest as the drone that took his blood sample set up the testing sample in a closed glass case. Another drone approached with a small canister that marked a sample of the virus he developed.

From the safety of a glass door, he watched as a sample of his blood was exposed to the virus.

"Applying Liberty1 to Sample 1." said Optima in the background.

Bruce had named the virus Liberty owing to the fact that the virus was supposed to free him from Hulk. Looking into the projected screen he saw the virus attacking the Hulk cells in his blood sample.

At first, the virus started picking up speed in attacking the cells. He could see the percentage jump from five to fifteen within seconds but once it reached twenty the virus began to flutter out.

"Sample 1 failed."

"Test Sample 2." he ordered.

Once again another sample of his blood was placed and another canister holding the virus was introduced to the sample. This time the virus fluttered out once it reached eighteen percent.

Bruce tested five samples in total and all of them were abysmal failures. The average effectiveness of the virus came to a mere seventeen percent. It was not much but it was a start.

"How did the test go?"

Bruce was so startled it nearly caused him to Hulk out. Turning around he was faced with Cerion and Bruce noticed his arm was turning green.

"Can you not do that. There is a green rage monster waiting to turn this place to ground zero in the blink of an eye." said Bruce, holding his chest and trying his best to calm his racing heart.

"Sorry. I think you need to practice meditation if you are getting this twitchy."

Bruce shook his head at Cerion's suggestion.

"I don't think meditation is the key. My time is better spent in finding a cure." said Bruce, slowly returning to his normal state.

"Bruce, you are treating Hulk as a disease. Don't do that. Your body has undergone an evolution of sorts. What you are struggling with is your mind. If you have better control of your consciousness you will be able to control the transformation."

Bruce frowned while letting out a scoff. "This is purely a genetic anomaly. If I can destroy the infected cells then I can remove Hulk from my body."

Cerion let out a sigh.

"I will of course aid you in finding a cure but meanwhile think about this. Your transformation is triggered by your heightened emotions. Your body undergoes an increase in muscle mass coincidently releasing a lot of energy from your cells. Do you honestly believe such a change in your body can be eradicated?"

That gave Bruce pause while looking at Cerion with wide eyes.

"What are you saying?" he asked, not at all liking the way where Cerion was taking this conversation.

"There is a strong possibility that you may not be able to eradicate Hulk in its entirety."

"You mean I'll always have to live in fear of changing into Hulk?" Bruce asked, with fear shining in his eyes.

"Not if you learn to master your emotions. Have you ever thought why you are not in control when you change into Hulk?"

Brice remained silent. He had given it quite a bit of thought but several conclusions he came to were not to his liking.

"An alter ego is forming inside your mind, Bruce. And I think you also agree that's a bad idea. We need to ensure your split in the psyche is reversed first and the best way to do that is through mastering your mind."

Bruce was not entirely sure such an approach was worth pursuing. Mostly because it was not a scientific approach and he couldn't exactly predict any results. Of course, any scientific approach he knew also did not guarantee any results so he was in a difficult place.

"Tell you what, I will arrange a teacher for you. All I ask is that you try this out for a week. If you feel it's a waste of time you can always come back here to continue your research." Cerion suggested.

Bruce thought of the idea for a while and in the end, he thought to give the idea a try.

"Alright. But, I can't exactly show my face outside as I'm still a wanted man in the US."

Bruce watched on curiously as Cerion waved away those concerns.

"Don't you worry my friend. The place I have in mind has no extradition treaty with the US."

Now that got Bruce curious. "Where exactly is this place?"

"You are going to love this Bruce. What do you think of Kathmandu?"

AN:

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