Hulk

replied. “Odd. I wasn’t aware that I was in a line of work that generally acquired fans.”
If Talbot was annoyed at the offhand rebuff, he didn’t show it. With no abatement of enthusiasm, he said, “You’ve certainly got one here. Your studies on cellular regeneration are groundbreaking.”
“Yes, they are.” He looked at Betty quizzically. “You’ve mentioned him?”
“We . . . used to see each other socially,” she said as judiciously as she could.
Bruce stared owlishly at Glen, apparently trying to place him, and then he abruptly said, “Oh! Wait. Would this be the ‘army clown’ you said you dated before you went to college?”
Betty covered her face with her right hand. And the cold look on Talbot’s face dropped another twenty degrees.
Meantime Bruce seemed oblivious to it all. “I’m sorry. It’s the lack of relevant costume that confused me.”
“Well, it’s Thursday, and I tend to send my clown costume out so I can have it back nice and clean for the weekend,” Glen said gamely. But then, surprisingly—at least to Betty—he smiled, apparently amused by the whole thing. “So my understanding is that you and Betty work together.”
“That’s right.”
“And does she speak for you, as well?”
Bruce stared at him in bemusement. “I like to think I’m capable of speaking for myself, thank you. What would this be about?”
“It’s probably my fault, Dr. Krenzler,” said Talbot, but even though he was nominally addressing Bruce, he was still looking at Betty. “I spoke with Dr. Ross about Atheon, the outfit that I work for. I don’t know that you’ve heard of us . . .”
“You’re being unduly modest . . . or inappropriately coy,” Bruce said evenly. “Anyone in just about any field of research has heard of Atheon. However, your exceedingly close ties with the military . . .”
“We don’t have close ties with the military, Dr. Krenzler. They have close ties with us—if you see the difference.”
“I’m sure it’s a great difference to you, Mr. Talbot,” said Bruce. “To me, it’s a mild semantic hairsplitting, but nothing beyond that.”
“That may be, Dr. Krenzler. But if you’d like to hear the point I was trying to make . . .”
“If making it will enable us to get back to work sooner rather than later, I’m all for it,” said Bruce.
“The point is I invited Dr. Ross to come work for Atheon . . .”
“Did you?” He looked with raised eyebrows at Betty.
“. . . and what I failed to make clear,” continued Talbot, “is that naturally we want you aboard as well. Our investigation indicates that you’re an excellent research team. We’d be extremely foolish to even contemplate splitting you up. The offer I made to you, Betty”—he nodded toward her—“applies equally to Dr. Krenzler. And since you’ve made it quite evident that you have other matters to attend to, I’ll leave you to attend to them, since I’m sure Betty can bring you up to speed, Dr. Krenzler.”
He put out a hand and Bruce shook it without much enthusiasm. Then he half-bowed to Betty, as if he were a German courtier, pulled out business cards with his name and the Atheon logo printed in bright red and gold, and with a flourish, presented one each to Betty and Bruce. “Betty, you doing anything tonight?”
“Sleeping.”
“Alone?”
Bruce saw Betty look at him, but maintained his utterly stoic demeanor. Her lips twitched in annoyance. “You never give up, do you, Glen?”
“What man in his right mind would?” he smiled. “Look, how about a quick dinner tonight, the three of us?”
“I’m not interested, nor is Betty,” Bruce said firmly, and instantly realized from the look in Betty’s eyes that he had made a mistake. Still, keeping an even keel, he said, “Of course, I could be wrong about that. I don’t maintain Dr. Ross’s social calendar.”
Without hesitation, Betty said to Talbot, “Is Atheon buying?”
“Of course.”
“Might be a nice change of pace from junk food grabbed out of a machine, or occasional scoops of ice cream. Paid for by a company that I deplore. It says ‘yes’ to me.”
Bruce knew that the words were deliberately intended to provoke him. He wasn’t sure why she was doing it, but he wasn’t about to be fazed by it. Instead, he simply shrugged and said, “I imagine it will be stimulating. Enjoy yourselves.”
Talbot looked rather surprised for a moment, but he didn’t let that distract him from the business at hand. “Well, Betty, how about I pick you up here, say, six?”
“All right,” she said. “No point in dismissing new concepts out of hand, I suppose. Right, Bruce?”
He nodded, his expression as stony as ever. And not for the first time, Bruce had the eerie feeling that someone or something else was rooting around just behind his eyeballs, growling in annoyance at the way things were progressing.
He found it oddly disconcerting, and, even more oddly, comforting.

hints of jealousy
The steady squeaking of the wheels on the janitor’s cart would have been enough to get on the nerves of just about any other person. But the janitor, unperturbed, pushed his cart steadily down the hallway of the Lawrence Berkeley lab facility, looking neither right nor left. People passed him by and didn’t even glance at him, which suited him just fine. He had nothing to say to them, and certainly they had nothing to say to him. As a janitor, he was one of the invisible people. At most someone might nod vaguely in his general direction and then instantly forget they’d seen him at all. That also suited him.
He kept his head down, focusing his attention on the floor and his cart. Every so often he’d raise his head enough to look around, his eyes burning with a frightening intensity. Had anyone looked him square in the eyes, they would have been taken aback, perhaps even frightened. Fortunately, no one did.
He brought his cart to a halt and removed a bucket of water and a mop. He used the same bucket to both soap the