The Universe's Mixer

It was a test - some kind of elaborate behavior experiment conducted by the defense department. They wanted to see if they could get their top nuclear physicist back on the team without having to worry about the Hulk turning General Ross into Captain Crunch.

This was the only hypothesis Bruce could formulate to explain why he was sitting in an office on a school campus in a city, when just last night he was sitting in a Greyhound station, eating from a discarded bag of corn nuts. His hypothesis further supposed that the military had finally tracked him down, kidnapped him while he dozed on the bench, and placed him in some kind of idyllic environment where they could monitor how he performed under a variety of stresses. It was like that British TV show, the Prisoner, except he had his own name - the UCLA diploma on the wall read "Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, PhD., nuclear physics" - and there were no giant, menacing, white balloons to be seen.

Not yet, anyway...

Shaking his head and throwing his arms up, he sighed. "Oh well. Might as well show them what a super-scientist is good for." He gathered up his laptop - syllabus, powerpoint presentation, everything a good teacher ought to have for the first day of class - and walked in what he hoped was the direction of his classroom.

After a number of wrong turns, he finally found the room number indicated on his syllabus and stepped in. The room was a large, amphitheater-style array of predominantly empty desks. A smattering of students were in attendance. He eyed them suspiciously as he set up his laptop on the podium.

"All right," announced the professor, folding his arms, waiting for the class to act, "who wants to know the secrets of the universe?"

The hospital was a good place for John Coffey to be. Not only could he help people all the time, but he couldn't get into trouble. Not that he did a whole lot of the latter, but sometimes he encountered people who weren't so good, and he didn't know what to do about it. It wasn't what anybody else would consider to be trouble, but it was troublesome to him.

Of course, it wasn't long before the hospital had less and less for him to do.

They had managed to keep him under wraps for the most part. The people he helped were too grateful to go blabbing to the media, and the hospital staff loved him. He was kind and quiet. And he was capable of helping them out with the patients they thought they were going to lose. Who was going to say anything? And risk losing this man who did so much for them?

But as the sick people became less and less, they encouraged him to have some time to himself more and more. Which meant leaving the hospital grounds and fending for himself. So far everybody had been lucky, because when he was needed, the hospital was put in front of him. He'd feel the need inside, and back to work he'd go.

Today was a little bit different though. The more he walked, the more the streets were taking him to an empty lot. Like the City didn't want to have him at the hospital anymore. And John Coffey didn't know where he was supposed to be going, nor did he realize that it was the same lot he was seeing. He just kept walking.

He only stopped when his feet were tired. Which made it extremely late in the day. The sun was setting and he could already see some of the night's stars. He smiled up at the sky as he sat on a bench that hadn't been there before.

Jeannie was still not all that certain that this was the best course of action. No matter what Spike had said, she could not shake her apprehensions about taking him to see someone who liked to call themselves a “slayer.” In her experience, those sorts of people were never to be trusted. Which was why instead of blinking Spike to this person by himself, she had chosen to join him. So that she could keep him safe. She refused to believe that her new master would tell her to help him only to see him harmed. That made no sense. No, this was the best way. Definitely.

From the well-lit street corner where she had met him… or was that re-met him? He did seem to think they had met before. Or at least he had met her twin sister. So that meant that they had some further connection perhaps. Which made it doubly important for her to keep him out of trouble.

From the well-lit street corner where she and Spike had been recently standing, they blinked into existence in a very dark place. It took Jeannie a moment to recognize it as an alleyway. A very dim and dirty alleyway. It smelled. Was this the sort of place that a slayer person was to be found? It was most unpleasant. A half second later, she squeaked and jumped closer to Spike, grabbing on to his arm as something greasy and furry scrabbled across her pink slipper.

“Oh!” she fumed, stamping her foot to make sure it was clear of the rat. “That is… this is… oh!”

Stepping slightly away from Spike, without releasing his arm, she commented, “I cannot see a thing, can you? This is not at all acceptable.”

With a quick nod and blink, a set of streetlights appeared, three on either side of the alleyway, completely filling the formerly darkened space with bright, warm light. Pleased with her accomplishment, she beamed at Spike, looking for his approval. “That is much better, is it not?”