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Synopsis: "Some time in the far future, a government dissenter and anti-war activist is drafted to become a new, gamma-powered super soldier."

A little experimental piece. There’s a brief bit on mental changes/mental conditioning involving American imagery. I apologize if it’s much.

Disclaimer: The copyrights to the Incredible Hulk and any related characters or depictions are owned by Marvel. This story is not intended to infringe on such copyright.

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The ride on the prisoners’ transport vehicle was silent, other than the slight bumps on the road rocking it every so often. Other than that unsightly, masked, heavily armored person who could only be assumed to be a soldier, Nick was the only person sitting in the back. He’d just woken up after being knocked out for a few hours, finding himself handcuffed from the back, chained to the bar behind him. 

It was dark inside, and Nick’s bluish-gray eyes strained to see anything through the small window across from him. Other than the fact it was sunny outside, he couldn’t see anything else. But that was probably because the window was too small for him to get a good look at anything. Instead, he brought his eyes toward the only other person he could see: the soldier.

Nick coughed, his throat and mouth feeling dry. He licked his lips to try to feel some moisture, but he felt exhausted. As his hacking stopped, he called out to the soldier in a raspy voice. “Where are you taking me?”

“Quiet.” The soldier’s voice was deep.

A headache slowed Nick’s response, but it eventually came after a gulp. “I deserve to know where we’re going,” he said. His voice grew stronger.

“You’re a government dissenter. A disgrace,” the soldier said, standing up. He approached Nick, and got close to his face. “You’re supposedly anti-war, but you disrupted the country’s law and order with your so-called ‘activism.’ You don’t deserve shit, and you deserve the draft.”

Then it came back to Nick. After a day of him strategizing with local activists to put pressure on the increasingly corrupt government, the army raided his apartment and took him. He stared into where he guessed the soldier’s eyes would be. “You know this draft’s illegal,” he said. 

No response.

“So where are you taking me? Bootcamp?”

The soldier scoffed. “Better than that.”

Nick’s face dropped. That’s not good news, he thought.

The vehicle slowed down and he realized something big was about to happen to him. Did that soldier mean… No, that project was scrapped. It was never greenlit. But with the military in charge, they could…

The soldier undid the chain attaching Nick to the vehicle, and pulled him up. Nick winced at the man’s tight grasp of his arm but had no time to react as the truck’s door opened, blinding him, then pushing him out. He had little time to find his footing or to allow his eyes to adjust as the soldier pushed him towards the entrance of a large mysterious facility, the only label on it being “Military Operations” on a small plaque above the large door.

It didn’t take long before he found himself approaching what seemed like a holding cell. Another soldier was stationed at the door with what seemed to be a uniform in hand. That soldier unlocked the cell, grabbed ahold of Nick’s arm — ignoring his wincing and clear reaction of pain — then freeing him from his handcuffs and pushing him in. 

Nick turned around and watched the two soldiers talk briefly, presumably about him, before they parted. He stepped back as the soldier with the clothes stepped in. He spoke with a deep voice, not unlike the other. “Strip to your underwear, keep your socks, and toss your current clothes to me and put these on,” he commanded. He threw the clothes he had to the floor in Nick’s direction before pressing on. “Now!”

Understanding the situation very well, Nick did not hesitate to start taking off his clothing. His attitude from earlier had completely gone away, replaced by a sense of anxiety and urgency. He slipped his shirt over his head and tossed it to the soldier, just as he was told; the same was done for his pants, shoes, and socks. 

Nick’s feelings of humiliation and invasion of privacy needed to be quickly discarded, so he slipped on the provided khaki pants (just a size too big), and tried to fit through the plain white shirt he was given. After a moment of tugging it over his head, he gave up and told the soldier, “This doesn’t fit.” His eyes locked with the soldier’s before darting away. 

The soldier sighed. “Fine,” he said, sounding irritated. He walked over and grabbed the shirt out of Nick’s hand. “I guess you’ll go without a shirt.” He collected Nick’s old clothing and started heading out.

“Wait!” Nick called out as the door began to close. “What’s gonna happen to me? I haven’t gone through due process!”

“When the doctor is ready for you, I’ll get you.”

Nick paled. “The doctor?” 

The soldier walked away. Despite the lack of response, his silence answered Nick’s question and his fear.

When Nick was organizing, he and other lead protestors had heard about a top secret project meant to enhance soldiers. It was called Project GAMMA, he was told. A science experiment to create the American super soldier. He never got all the details, since it was supposedly never approved, but his current circumstances could only be explained by that. Why else would there be a scientist involved in what seems like a testing facility?

Yet as Nick made his way to the dirty mirror in the cell and stared at himself — his fairly slim, pale body and his 5’9” stature — he couldn’t understand why he of all people would be picked for this. At 19, he was different from any of his involved peers. He was far from a soldier and could never live in their mindset. He was independent, and not quite patriotic. The most athletic he got was running, so he wouldn’t stand a chance against the hulking soldiers around him.

His heart was racing. What were they about to do to him?

The answer of that question would come soon enough, as the soldier had already come back. He opened the door. “Get out,” he demanded.

Nick looked at the soldier and walked to the door and the soldier immediately grabbed ahold of his arm. He could try to make a break for it, he thought, but with a place as large as this facility being in the middle of nowhere, attempting would surely be a death sentence. He allowed himself to be tugged along to a door labeled “TESTING LAB 1-H” as he grimly walked down the fluorescent-lit hallways.

A new man, short, aged, with a sickly, greenish tint to his skin was standing inside, patiently waiting for who was inevitably to become his test subject.

He stood next to a large machine. It was reminiscent of an external beam radiation machine but modified: the treatment table was fixed at an angle so that the subject would be more upright, the radiation laser seemed to cover a larger area, and a small screen was attached to it. The scientist grinned when he saw Nick’s look of fear at the machine. “Strap him to the table, Sarge.”

Within a few moments, Nick was forcibly strapped and bound to the table around his waist, his wrists, and his ankles. He tried to get a look at the ID card hanging from the scientist’s lab coat: Dr. Samuel Sterns.

“Thank you,” Dr. Sterns said. “You can leave us.”

And so the soldier did, leaving Nick and the malicious man in the room.

Nick’s heart was beating out of his chest, feeling fear as Dr. Sterns began to circle Nick, as if to inspect him, with a mischievous grin on his face. “Who… who the hell are you?” Nick asked, his voice shaking.

“My name is Dr. Samuel Sterns. Yours is Nicklas Radler, but you prefer to just go by Nick, I heard,” he started, locking his eyes with Nick’s. “I am the lead scientist of this small project.”

“Is this… Project GAMMA?”

Dr. Sterns stopped pacing around Nick. He scoffed as he looked Nick up and down. “So you’ve been told?”

“No. I’ve heard about it… I thought this project was dead.”

“It was. It really was.” Dr. Sterns stepped forward before he continued, prompting Nick to take a sharp breath as his heart began to race even more. “That was until your little band of kids began picking up traction. People stopped enlisting, and the draft became more aggressive. What we didn’t anticipate was how you guys sowed so much resistance against the government. So, I made my case to the men in charge and got my way. You were… picked up because you fit what we needed at the moment, in comparison to your anarchist teammates.”

Nick was silent, and a feeling of dread came upon him. Was everyone else in danger? “What are you going to do to me?”

The grin on the scientist’s face grew wider and more wicked. “Project GAMMA is meant to make the world’s first gamma-powered super soldier, hence the name. A combination of nanites, serum, and radiation to turn the mind and body of any man into one of a true American patriot, ready to fight for his country. A total transformation — one that you’ll be the first to enjoy.”

Mind and body? Radiation? “Gamma radiation kills,” Nick said frantically. Maybe he could bargain his way out of here.

“Not at certain frequencies for short bursts of time,” Dr. Sterns retorted.

“I could never fight for this country, doc. I’ve never had a passion for this country, and I never will. I don’t plan on contributing to war.”

+

“Ah, that’s what you think.” Dr. Sterns stepped away and pressed a button. On the side of the machine came a few vials and a few syringes. He took one vial, filled with a greenish liquid, and another, filled with a clear thick liquid, along with one of the syringes. 

“You see the nanites we’re using today are special,” he explained. He loaded the syringe with the clear liquid. “These change your psychology to be a little more… suggestible. More flexible and eager to accept what is presented. A bit of programming through audio and visuals, a boost of testosterone, and your mindset will be changed. You’ll come out a new man.”

“Fuck you,” Nick said quietly. Dr. Sterns grabbed Nick’s neck and slowly positioned it before he injected the liquid (which Nick now safely assumed to be the nanite fluid) into his neck, straight into his spine.

As soon as Dr. Sterns removed the needle, Nick started to feel a slight haze settle on his mind. It was like locks on his mind slowly began to unravel and he felt vulnerable. It stung as he felt a numbing pain from his neck spread to the rest of his spine and seemingly his brain. He fought hard to fight it, now knowing what was about to happen. “No, no…” he muttered.

“The serum will do to your body what the nanites will do to your mind. Open your body to stimulation and transformation,” Dr. Sterns said. “Inspired by the work of an ‘old colleague,’ you shouldn’t have to worry too much. At least you won’t be the scrawny stick you are now.”

Still reeling from the slight pain of the nanites, Nick looked back at Sterns in horror as he saw the scientist grab his left arm. “Get off me!” He yelled, desperate to leave. He thrashed his arm around, trying to make it hard for Sterns to find a vein to inject. “No! Please, doc, don’t put that shit inside me!”

His efforts were futile as Sterns pulled another strap around his arm to keep bound to the table as he injected. The serum burned as it entered Nick’s system, prompting him to scream. He felt defeated, unlike the proud and defiant protester he was when he got taken. The burning quickly subsided, however, as the last of it left the syringe and the syringe left his body.

“You’re a loud one,” Sterns said. “I can see why you were put on the front lines of those protests. You’ll need that energy on the battlefield.”

He undid the extra strap around his arm and left the room. He appeared once again behind a window, an observational control room that looked into the room Nick was strapped in. Dr. Sterns seemed to flick a couple switches before the radiation machine whirred to life. 

The machine buzzed as the beam transport lowered around and lit up, a heated greenish light shining against Nick. The screen came down with it, shoved into Nick’s face, turning on to an image of the American flag.

“Are you ready, Nick?” Dr. Sterns’ voice came through speakers into the room.

“Fuck you!” 

“So we shall begin.”

Click.

The beam transport unleashed gamma rays against Nick’s body as he shut his eyes. The radiation beam oscillated around him. The voices of men that weren’t there filled his ears.

Dr. Sterns of course noticed Nick’s shut eyes and sought to rectify it. “Open your eyes, Nick,” he said through the speakers.

“Why should I?”

“You need to open your eyes.”

The commanding sound of Sterns’ voice compelled something inside him to open his eyes, to become exposed to the propaganda on the screen. The nanites were already doing their job. “No…”

Nick felt his body heat up as he received the radiation and his body began to mutate. His eyes were wide open as words and imagery came onto the screen.

YOU ARE A PATRIOT.
YOU ARE AMERICAN.

Nick recoiled at the sound of deep-voiced men repeating the phrases being blasted in his ears. He tried his best to think about anything else other than the words on the screen, but with his eyes peeled he couldn’t resist the messaging. An American flag flashed onto the screen.

“I’m… not a patriot,” he said to himself. That much was true for the moment, but his mind was quickly melding to what was being introduced. He foolishly tried to imagine himself as a dumb patriot, but realized it felt more real than he expected.

Without any warning, he suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot through his body before it subsided. The changes were beginning, and he was unable to stop it.

AMERICA FIRST.
SERVE YOUR COUNTRY.

His eyes flashed green for a moment as the physical changes made themselves known. Not only were they more apparent, Nick could feel them take place from the inside out. 

He had little room to glance down as all the muscles in his body began to burn, as if he had just gone through some strenuous workout. His toes curled and his hands rolled into fists as the sensation of growth became intense. His heart was beating heavily as his body began to stretch, adding extra inches to his height.

“God… what the fuck…” Nick shut his eyes for a moment before feeling compelled to open them once again, staring directly at the words. Again, another image of the flag then of a camo uniform flashed in front of him. He felt scared when he could suddenly imagine himself wearing that very uniform before the words changed again.

AMERICAN TRADITION IS GOOD.
BROTHERHOOD AND CAMARADERIE.

The images of fraternity bros flashed onto the screen, the same kind that he had rejected being friends with in college, before also being replaced with what seemed to be military men enjoying each others’ company. What Nick didn’t anticipate was how arousing the idea of finally accepting “American values” would suddenly be, and how arousing being a ‘bro’ would sound.

As if he started to subconsciously will it, he very briefly flexed his whole body despite his position, and his muscles tightened and began to grow. Nick glanced down, saw, and felt his biceps begin to grow. They stretched outward almost beautifully but slowly, as if he was watching a timelapse of a person building muscle.

The feeling of growth only added to the burning but was surprisingly pleasure-inducing. Nick couldn’t control the soft moan that left his lips as his now rock hard cock caught friction against the inside of his boxers. Quickly he felt a crisis of identity coming on. “No I’m not like them… I could never be like them,” he told himself. But as he repeated those words in his head, he became less and less confident in them. 

After all, a voice in the back of his head began to say, who wouldn’t want a bro to lean back on?

THIS WE’LL DEFEND.
SEMPER FI.

Nick immediately recognized the phrases as they were screamed into his ear: the mottos of the Army and the Marines. Photos of men from each branch flashed, the voices of men speaking to him to become a recruit invading his brain.

“But I’m not… them!” He tried harder to strengthen his resolve. It was undercut by a new pang of pleasure, eliciting a louder moan than before, as he saw and felt another round of growth in his body. 

His pecs ballooned and became more defined, and he felt his thighs and calves begin to experience the same treatment as his arms. All parts of his body began to feel heavier but stronger. Nick gasped as he felt like the air was knocked out of him for a second — his abdomen tightened as his abs became much more prominent and larger, jutting out. Droplets of sweat began to form all over his body. A sudden increase of testosterone in his system as his body reacted to its own changes.

The military men on the screen suddenly became familiar. Nick’s eyes widened when he realized who they were: guys from his high school who he had cut off shortly after he found out they enlisted. 

BE A MAN.
BE A SOLDIER.

“I am… a man…” Nick’s words were slowing as his brain was processing everything thrown at it. Now images of people he knew from his high school and men from his college playing football flashed across. Expressions and screams of masculinity and aggression played on the screen. The images of traditional American masculinity inserted themselves into his sense of self, tying his ideas of being a man to that.

“Stop! No!” He screamed out as he realized the thoughts popping into his head. It was no use, of course, as he began to cultivate a subtle desire to “BE A MAN” like the ones he saw on screen. A voice in his head whispered temptations, of course he should want to be a man!

As much as he presently hated the changes happening to him, Nick started to love the sensations he felt all over his body. He felt confused, knowing that he absolutely shouldn’t, but his mind and body were betraying his spirit. Case in point:

Nick moaned as he felt his cock get longer and larger in his boxers. He could feel pre begin to leak just a tad as it brushed past wet spots. “Fuck,” he muttered. He looked down as more and more of his muscles pushed outward. His chest and shoulders became broader and his back widened. His now eight-pack abs were cut and large, his lats flared, and his pants now fit more snugly around his waist and legs. It was clear, however, that fat wasn’t the cause for this.

YOU ARE STRONG.
YOU HAVE MUSCLE.

At this, as if his body took a mind of its own, Nick suddenly flexed his new muscles as much as he could while strapped down. He moaned; the sensation felt so good, releasing the right hormones in his body. Veins pushed up, his vascularity being unlike anything he ever had before. In fact, his whole body was unlike anything he ever had before. Never in his life had Nick been built like this, but now he was built like the perfect soldier. And he was feeling good.

On the screen in front of him, he saw shirtless athletes and bodybuilders exercising and flexing flash in front of his eyes. He was a man like them, Nick thought, he was strong as hell and he could prove it. He could enlist. But he interrupted that train of thought as he realized how much he had changed. His will, however, was being muddied by his libido.

On a screen from the control room, connected to a camera pointed at Nick’s face, Dr. Sterns watched as Nick’s gray eyes became a bright green. The scientist smiled. “Perfect.”

SERVE IN THE WAR.
YOU LOVE AMERICA.

“No, no…” As the words changed, Nick knew he needed to resist the mental changes. So he tried, but everything felt so good. He was on fire in the best way possible. And he was losing himself.

Nick’s cock struggled against his boxers, wanting to free itself so desperately. He moaned and yelled in pleasure. He needed to release. He needed to be free.

Suddenly he felt a new primal, savage energy spring forth from within him. The feeling of pure anger and power entered his veins, prompting Nick to feel like he unlocked a new part of the serum. In a way he did, activated by the prolonged gamma radiation.

Nick’s skin began to shift to a green, just like that of the Hulk he had heard about years ago. His hair went from a light brown to a dark green. His newly-muscled body shifted into something even more powerful, as all his muscles packed on more mass. His pants began to rip as his body became much more than the fabric could handle. His growth shifted to his height as he now added another near-foot to his new human height of 6’1”.

The strap around his waist burst open from the force of his new transformation. Nick ripped through the straps bounding his wrists and ankles like they were nothing, fueling a new dangerous arrogance. Dr. Sterns was unconcerned.

YOU ARE A PATRIOT.

Fuck patriotism, Nick thought.

Nick looked down to briefly admire his body and flexed, but knew he couldn’t wait. He knew that the emerald beast he had become had the strength he needed to punch out and leave. But he was frozen, in front of the screen. There was unbridled energy, power, and strength inside him, but his mind was so occupied by his rock-hard cock. He couldn’t help but begin to rip off the tatters of his pants and boxers, and stroke.

He screamed at himself in his head, he needed to stop! He needed to leave! But Nick continued to stroke. His eyes were glued to the screen. Pictures and videos of American soldiers, shirtless and in action, young patriotic men built like he was now built, all shining from the screen and attaching themselves into the deepest recesses of his brain. He was becoming.

Nick started to want it.

And as he continued to stroke, he moaned, distracted by his own pleasure, changing more and more… Until, at long last, the release and relief he was looking for. He yelled out powerfully as he finally came, greenish off-white semen shooting all over him and on the floor. With each powerful shot was also the release of everything he used to be. No longer could he be the scrawny, smug, seditious little activist he used to be.

Not when he could be like this.

And as he panted in the aftermath, shrinking down to his new human normal, with his greenness fading away, he thought only one thing as he stared at the screen.

Of course he was a patriot.

YOU ARE A SOLDIER.

As the last words appeared on screen, and his reversion to his new normal finished, the beam transport stopped oscillating. The machine died down, the screen folded back up, and soon no sound was in the room except for Nick’s own breathing.

Nick slowly stepped off the table, approaching the glass through which he could clearly see Dr. Sterns and a faint reflection of himself. There was a new subtly cocky strut in the way he walked, and he had an arrogant smirk on his face. Truly, he’d become an alpha, fit for combat.

“How’d I do, doc?” Nick said, his voice just a tad bit deeper than before. He brought up an arm to flex for a moment before bringing it back down.

Dr. Sterns seemed more than satisfied. “Thank you for participating in Project GAMMA, Nick. I’m happy to say it was a success,” he said through the speakers. Through the glass, he wore a smile. “You may find new clothes on the compartment on the side.”

Nick looked and found a new pair of khaki pants to replace the one he had ruined, a new pair of boxers, and a plain white shirt that very clearly fit him. But after he put on his pants, he decided he didn’t need to wear the shirt.

“Now I’m obligated to tell you that you have been drafted into the U.S. Army, to become a part of their first GAMMA platoon,” Dr. Sterns said on the speakers.

Nick scoffed. “Finally. Some good news.” 

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I'm enjoying all of these recent science fiction oriented stories, gives me ideas about how to use technology in my own. Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

"Brave New World" meets "Pumping Iron":  

 ===============

No longer could he be the scrawny, smug, seditious little activist he used to be.

================

 

Fun story!

 

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