Dr. Bruce Banner – Flash Pieces

There are practicalities he has to consider as Dr. Banner for when he’s Hulk. There’s a flip side to being seven feet tall and weighing half a ton, able to propel himself several miles from a deep knee bend, capable of benching a hundred tons or holding his breath for twelve hours. His motor skills are elephantine, his fingers half as wide as a normal fist, his touch roughshod on anything the least bit frangible. Touch screens are out.

Dr. Banner designs a voice-activated device for Hulk he won’t ever touch to use, where sending a text or responding to notification that a text message has arrived, or calling anyone or answering a call, is accomplished with a simple, monosyllabic voice command. A speaker dependent system is what he needs for Hulk, and he needs the local system identification (SID) number from American Cellular to patch into their frequencies with Hulk’s customized device.

Calling technical support, and no one on the front lines knows the SID number, or what a SID number is. Brad (third transfer) is upbeat and helpful or confident of being able to assist. Brad acts like this is a routine request, but then he puts Dr. Banner on hold ‘for a minute.’ Brad could ignore him, strand him in hold purgatory until he hung up. Brad’s in complete control. If Dr. Banner hangs up he might never get back to Brad. The third transfer next time might be back to the technical support help desk front lines, where they’ll tell him to try powering off his device.

A woman picks up the call, no-nonsense, aggressively questioning him about why he needs the SID number. He can sense her sorting the information he gives her into predetermined categories of corporate dictum. His explanation isn’t expected, and she doesn’t have a counter argument. She’s been confronted with the unanticipated, something off-script. She becomes less aggressive but steadfastly she’s sorry, they can’t give out that information.

Anyone at the mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) knows the SID number. The MTSO outposts are operated by machines and wires and electricity, with a skeleton crew making sure everything functions within optimal parameters. Dr. Banner downloads a grid map (he has level 3 security clearances), narrowing down where the MTSO might be based on concentrations of power annotated in red on the grid map. After some twilight reconnaissance by Hulk, he locates the MTSO within a high degree of certainty, an unmarked, newer brick office building with swamp-water tinted windows, in ideal range of a cell tower.

He arrives at the MTSO and circles the building. There isn’t a public entrance. No one in sight behind the tinted windows, some tinted glass doorways on either side of the building off the parking lots, but no way in without a coded card. Or if you’re Hulk, splashing through the outer glass doors, mangling the inner door. Surveying his surroundings he sees no one, only tight passageways banked by rows of servers and wires and ports and cables and blinking blue lights.

He turns sideways to move laterally down the nearest passage. He comes to the end of one and hears soft voices, following them, maneuvering to his left and down the next passageway and the talking has ceased, in a room walled by more servers and no windows, three people turned to him in muted astonishment. Hulk sidles into the room and squares up.

“Hulk needs SID number. Or Hulk will smash.”

Not much they can do but give him what he’s after. The MTSO is the wire-and-circuitry heart and soul of the cell phone delivery system of this particular hexagonal cell in the honeycomb.

The voice user interface of Hulk’s new device recognizes only Hulk’s voice if Hulk is in a crowd of people, or otherwise surrounded by ancillary noises, the voice user interface ignoring everything except Hulk’s voice. Dr. Banner tweaks the auditory capability of the device so it has the hearing of an owl.

When his next bill comes a $65 custom equipment surcharge has been added. He calls the 800 number on his bill to complain and he’s greeted with “message MD22, welcome to American Cellular. The number you have called is no longer in service. If you feel this message is in error please contact American Cellular, message MD22.” Um. And sur, doesn’t that mean “on” in French? Is the use of surcharge meant to imply that a custom equipment surcharge is something less consequential than a custom equipment charge?

He doesn’t want an explanation as much as justification, or to hear what the official explanation might be. Presumably he wouldn’t be the first person to ask, and there’s a scripted response. He could always call technical support. Maybe Brad can help.

Dr. Banner is aware he’s a whale to his fanged prick of a business manager, H. H will never have a higher net worth client, and he lives more extravagantly than Dr. Banner, Dr. Banner wondering if he’s paying H too much, half-jokingly, half passive-aggressively. H understands and respects and even appreciates passive-aggressiveness. H is worth it, H with his PhD in the shitty and petty and amoral things people will do to get at Dr. Banner’s various holdings.

Dr. Banner sits across a desk from H as H is talking with an attorney representing the center Hulk dispatched at the Jets scrimmage, the center in traction for three weeks, with a dislocated hip forced to sit out the entire season, losing his starting job to someone younger and bigger.

“Not our concern,” H says into the phone, glancing confidently at Dr. Banner. “Football players get hurt…you should anticipate that…with more guaranteed money…if I played in the NFL I would never hire you or your firm.”

Pause, as the attorney on the other end of the line rebuts.

“Did you read the waiver? The Jets signed it…again, not our problem…the waiver is ironclad,” pause, H listening, “go ahead, the firm that drew up that document will shred you.”

H grabs a piece of paper from his desk and slides it into a crosscut shredder behind him, holding the phone to the humming grind.

“Like that.”

It was smart, the waiver, the Jets waiving any recourse against the Hulk or Dr. Banner, waiving recourse on behalf of the organization and any of its employees. H thinks of everything. He might be a rabid attack dog, but he’s Dr. Banner’s rabid attack dog and Dr. Banner’s yard he’s protecting. Dr. Banner privately wishes people like H weren’t necessary, but they are, unfortunately, as he knows all too well.

“Not our problem,” pause, H listening, “iron clad, my man. It makes no difference if he didn’t sign it, the Jets did and he’s an employee of the New York Jets football organization,” pause, H listening, “then sue the Jets if you want but I expect this to be our last conversation on the matter.”

H hangs up, happy with himself, cocky. Dr. Banner knows this is a prelude to something else, a performance meant to impress or distract, or to lessen the impact of not so great news to follow. H could have handled this without Dr. Banner’s involvement. Normally he would have.

“We won’t be hearing from them again.”

“What else is there?”

“Just this. I’m not sure what the hell this is. What are they talking about?”

H tosses an opened envelope on the desk in front of Dr. Banner, from the United States Department of Defense, swallowing hard.

“Chamomile tea?”

There is always the risk of a Hulk tirade if something pisses off Dr. Banner. A Hulk tirade means H’s expensive office accoutrements are at risk. No doubt they’re insured.

Dr. Banner reads the information and smiles and he can sense H smiling too, relieved and leaning back in his chair. Dr. Banner says nothing, only smiling, H, not sure what to make of the smile, commenting cavalierly, “that’s a lot of money,” easy for him to say. Dr. Banner could still get angry. Smiles can be angry.

An invoice for $485,365 addressed to Dr. Bruce Banner from the U.S. Department of Defense, for the destruction of four Nano-Hummingbird Spy Drones, payable upon receipt of the invoice. Failure to remit payment immediately can result in IRS liens on property or other of his financial holdings.

He could complain about the selective memory. When he’d been on contract with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a consultant came his exposure to drone technology, his input into the creation of harvester drones with the ability to detect airborne radiation, used to inspect nuclear facilities for fallout. The harvester drones could see and hear and go places people couldn’t or shouldn’t, but what the harvester drones couldn’t do was detect anything, and so Dr. Banner’s contribution was the equivalent of developing an olfactory sense in these harvester drones, converting them into mechanized bloodhounds hot on the scent of airborne radiation.

He didn’t collaborate to make money. He collaborated, performing his duties to the utmost of his capabilities, for the safety of humankind. He’d rather have left it at that. Someone is selling the harvester drones to someone else. The regulatory commission may have and probably has mandated that any sanctioned nuclear facility must use these harvester drones, so someone is profiting from this idea, an idea that wouldn’t have been possible if not for Dr. Banner’s collaboration.

He could tell H about the harvester drones. H would want to sue for patent infringement or royalties or something. He’s not sure he’s up to that fight at the moment, the entanglement of it, bureaucratic tedium that will result in meeting in the middle somewhere. The back and forth, posturing, measuring of penises, where the middle is and whose side the middle is closer to. That’s what they’re counting on, that he doesn’t want the fight. What they’re not counting on is H, his well-compensated Rottweiler.