The She-Hulk Diaries (41 page)

I went up to the penthouse, which was filled with cheerful, chatting scientists.

A woman with permed gray hair noticed me and said, “You’re Jennifer Walters! You just won the lawsuit against ReplaceMax.”

Others heard her and came to say hello. I was so busy answering their questions that I couldn’t get to Sven, but he came forward and said, “You must excuse me, but I would like to welcome my marvelous date to this wonderful event.”

He was wearing a black suit that fit perfectly. When he came to hug me, I touched the jacket, which was cashmere soft. “Hello, Sven,” I said, but I could hear Jordy’s voice inside my brain sneering
Dirtbag Slime Mold Rug Guy.

“You look very lovely, my dear. Come, let’s have some champagne, and tell me how you’ve been.”

He took two glasses from a passing waiter, raised his, and said, “To the most radiant and accomplished attorney in all of New York.”

“The city or the state?” asked a familiar voice.

Amber Tumbridge was standing nearby, and I don’t think I’d ever seen an angrier smeer. Ellis stood behind her, looking away, as if he thought he was too good to associate with us.

Sven put his hands on Amber’s toned golden shoulders. “I should have said, to
one
of the two most radiant and accomplished attorneys on planet Earth. How exquisite you look tonight, Amber.”

She was perfection in a simple black sheath dress. Diamonds glittered on her ears, on her ring finger, and on a bracelet around her slim wrist. She saw me notice the bracelet and said, “My Valentine’s Day gift from Ellis. Jennifer, that’s
obviously
your favorite dress—you wear it everywhere.”

Ellis glanced over and said impassively, “Morigi. Ms. Walters.”

“Quintal,” Sven said, chilly. “Amber, I do hope we’ll all have the opportunity to talk later.” He took my arm and guided me away.

“I have a gift for you, Jennifer, a belated Valentine’s Day present, since I knew you wouldn’t accept it earlier.”

“You didn’t have to, Sven.” I followed him to the terrace. A kazillion lights twinkled and glowed, and I saw the Statue of Liberty beyond. It was so lovely it made me want to cry.

Sven reached into his pocket and took out a long black velvet box. “This is for you, my dear.”

When I opened it, I saw a necklace made of linked gold medallions that were set with large topazes and rubies. “Sven, it’s too much.”

“Jennifer, you’ve given me back my dream, and that is priceless. Wear this for me tonight at least.”

Holden always says that nothing is priceless, and his GLKH accountants could put a current value on Sven’s dream, but I merely smiled and stood still while Dr. Stunning brushed my hair back and latched the necklace.

He stood back and gazed at me. “You are my ideal, Jennifer.”

“Sven, I am as flawed as anyone. More than most.”

“I doubt that, but I won’t argue the point when we should be celebrating our victory and the beginning of this new stage of our relationship.”

I found myself wondering if Rene would say, “Where’s the passion?”

We returned to the hall and mingled, which is easy at business gatherings, because I can ask about people’s jobs and smile while they go on in too much detail; my brain was free to hate hate hate Ellis and Amber and their perfect coupleness. I wondered if they sang duets. Probably.

Sven and I were seated at a front table with several prominent bioethicists. Sven was a featured speaker, and he told the audience, “I am going to resurrect ReplaceMax like Lazarus from the grave, and we will see a revolutionary new era of cloned organs.” He angled his exquisite face for the news cameras, and his glacier blue eyes blazed like ice and fire. “No longer will we fear the assassination of a beloved leader, which could cause a nation’s upheaval, or the loss of a child, which would cause a family’s misery.”

I looked down at the table. I got an ooky feeling from his use of “beloved leader” and mention of a child’s death. I was being too sensitive.

Later, after Sven had finished his speech and was chatting with colleagues, I went outside to the terrace to be alone. I breathed in the cool air, which carried spring scents from planters of freesia and tulips.

“Jennifer.”

I turned and saw Ellis.

“Hello, Ellis.”

“I wanted to apologize.” His brow furrowed and he let out an exasperated huff. “I keep saying the wrong things to you. I wish I knew the right things to say, but I feel as if I’ve said so much to you already.”

“In your songs.”

“Yes. That was then, and this is now. You’re Amber’s colleague and my father’s favorite, so it’s best if we try to get along.”

“I’m your dad’s favorite? Really!”

“My dad’s favorite is always the one who’s won the biggest case most recently,” Ellis said.

He ran a hand through his thick dark brown hair. His beard was neatly trimmed, and I wished he was wearing a gold hoop through his ear and an eye patch.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. Yes, let’s try again to get along.”

“Except that I want to tell you that you were wrong.”

I contemplated pushing him over the railing and into traffic, but because I’m a mature adult woman, I said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ellis, stop telling me I shouldn’t have represented Sven in court! It’s over. I kicked ass and I won.”

His mouth tightened. “I meant you were wrong that I was trying to manipulate you the other night. I care for you more than I’ve ever cared for any woman.” He came close to me and ran his fingers down my cheek. His voice was low and rough, and just the sound of it wrapped around me, tugging me toward him. “My gorgeous green-eyed flesh-eating bacteria girl.”

“Well, isn’t that too, too sweet?”

Ellis and I jumped away from each other and saw that both Sven and Amber had come out to the terrace, shutting the glass doors to the ballroom.

Amber looked at Sven and said, “How many times have I said that we don’t need them in our lives?”

“Amber?” Ellis asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Shut up, Ellis.” Amber looked at me. “Jennifer, what an annoying, stupid, clumsy giraffe you are. If I never see you again, it will be too soon.”

She was a bitch and she was going to marry the man I loved and I hated hated hated her. “Amber, for the record, I am trained in several martial arts and could kill you with my bare hands, but I don’t want to ruin my manicure.” I tucked my clutch under my arm and walked to the double doors. I pulled at one. It remained shut. I pulled at the other.

“It’s no use, Jennifer,” Sven said. “They’re locked. Don’t try breaking them. The glass was replaced by an impenetrable soundproof polymer. You’ll find your phones useless here, too.”

“What the hell do you mean by this, Morigi?” Ellis said, grabbing Sven by the arm.

Sven threw him off as easily as throwing off a kitten. Ellis flew into the wall bounding the terrace and lay motionless where he fell. I saw the glint of silver—a pin—in Sven’s hand, and I ran to Ellis. His eyes sought mine, but his body was immobile.

“You’ll be okay.” As I dragged Ellis into a safe corner, I slipped my hand into his inside jacket pocket and found the sheet of paper I knew would be there. I kept it hidden in my hand.

I turned to Sven, trying to see him again,
really
see him below the surface of Dirtbag Slime Mold Rug Guy. He was smiling coolly at me, because he knew that I knew he wasn’t what his official bio said. No mere human was that strong.

“What did you do to him, Sven?”

“It’s only an immobilizer. It lasts a few hours and I can give him a memory wipe,” Sven said. “Then he and Amber can go on as if this never happened. She will handle legal logistics for my takeover of vital corporations, and the Quintal fortune will fund our start-up.”

“That was
your
plan, Sven,” she said. “I don’t even want him. He’s still mooning after this stupid slutty groupie, and I hate his beard, his stupid science school, and his stupid new band. Why should I get second best? Why should
you
get second best when you could have me? I was editor of the
Yale Law Review
!”

Shulky was awake inside me, and I was assessing the situation and wondering why this crap happened every single time I got dressed up for a party. I circled away from Sven, who gave Amber a scathing, super smeer, a smeer that made her own look like amateur hour at Camp Condescension.

“Amber, I’ll forget that you insulted science education, because I’m feeling magnanimous today. However, compared to Jennifer Susan Walters, you are cheap gilt finish over pot metal. Do you want to know why I wanted her to be lead on my case? Because she is good and she
believes
. When she spoke about the dying girl, the jurors heard her authenticity. The only things authentic about you are your avarice and ambition.”

“Cheap! We had a deal,” she snarled. “You told me you wanted to be with me, that we would stay young and strong forever, that I would be beautiful forever.”

“You’re deluded, Amber,” I said. “Haven’t you learned anything from the ReplaceMax tragedy?”

“You stupid bitch,” she shouted, her lovely voice cracking into a shriek. “Those organs were flawless! Sven took Max Kirsch’s initial rapid skin-growing technique and used his facilities to perfect Project Mimic. We can clone anything, and the cloned organ will make the entire body healthier and stronger. But having incorruptible Max in control wouldn’t do us any good,
obviously
. So after the organs passed inspection, Sven introduced a modification that set off a scheduled malfunction. Thanks to your legal skills, we now have complete control of ReplaceMax and Project Mimic.”

I froze and looked at Sven’s beautiful face,
impossibly
beautiful. “Victor von Doom!” I said to my nemesis, shocked that I hadn’t known the man I’d fought so many times.

“I know you’ll agree that there are advantages to alternate identities, my dear. Rearrange the letters in
Doctor Sven Morigi
and you get
Victor Doom reigns
! I dropped the von, which had seemed right at the time but now is a little much, don’t you think? Like using punctuation for a name. Glad I never did that!” He came toward me. “I’m not Victor
Doom anymore. He was hideously mutilated. I’m Sven Morigi now. I will eliminate all other bioethical authorities, and I alone will decide who benefits from Project Mimic. The world’s leaders will come begging to have a liver, or a kidney—most don’t need hearts.” He didn’t bother to hide his true
bwaa-ha-ha
laugh.

I needed to keep him talking yadda-yadda-yadda while I thought of a plan. “How did you make this transformation? Why is your voice different? Why do people remember you as Sven?”

“My voice was an easy adjustment to my vocal cords, setting a pitch that is as intoxicating as my glorious visage. As for my history, I established a fabricated biography with a mesmerizing code.”

That’s what Jordy meant about Sven’s bio being wonky. “You arranged your own kidnapping attempt at the Club Nice opening and invited me to witness it.”

“It was an efficient method of establishing ReplaceMax as the villain, and I enjoyed the theatrical touch,” he said. “Your sympathy always goes to the victims, Jennifer. If you hadn’t been able to fight them off in either of your personas, I would have engineered an escape.”

I glanced over at Ellis and saw confusion in his eyes. I was confused, too. “Sven or Doom, whatever, why did you bring me here tonight? What’s the point of this whole charade?”

Amber fumed and said, “Sven, would you just kill her already?”

He gave her a scathing look. “Don’t interrupt when I’m talking to my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend!

He saw my stunned expression and said, “People believed that brilliant and beautiful Sven Morigi exists. I
am
brilliant and beautiful, and finally we can consummate the relationship that has been building between us for so very long. The world loves me now, just as you do.”

“I don’t love you.” Did it count as having a boyfriend if a madman thought he was dating me?

“Not yet, but you will, Jennifer. We’ve already had marvelous evenings together, and it was so funny when you were wearing your blouse
inside out and saying your neck was cold! We’ll laugh about that in the coming years and develop a deep intellectual connection as well as a rewarding physical one. You know what they say—happy wife, happy life, so we will marry and have the most brilliant, beautiful, and inventive children in the galaxy. We will be the perfect family. I’d like to get a golden retriever; and we’ll have stunning family photos from our ski vacations on our Christmas cards.”

Amber grabbed his arm. “What about me?”

Sven gazed coldly at her hand. “Amber, I would sooner trust a rabid honey badger to raise my children than you. A mother should be loving, noble, and brave, as my own mother was, and as Jennifer is. Ugliness made me a monster. You have no justification.”

She tried to claw his face, and he used another pin to immobilize her. She slumped to the ground, her blue eyes wide and manic.

It was time for Shulky to handle her nemesis, and I relaxed so she could come out. I felt her struggling—but nothing! I wasn’t changing.

Sven smiled calmly and said, “Jennifer, we can leave here after the bomb clears the ballroom in exactly twenty minutes. The timing mechanism is on a loop. If you try to dismantle it,
boom!
I’d rather use a more creative weapon, but I can pass conventional weapons off as a terrorist attack. It will be quite a tragedy, and we will be at the center of media attention, allowing us to frame the narrative. Would you like to go over our talking points?”

I paced and flexed, trying to release Shulky, but she couldn’t get out.

Sven said, “The necklace is made of an alloy that you can’t break, and it blocks your morphing ability. As much as we care for each other, Jennifer, I think there may be a period of adjustment for She-Hulk to embrace our destiny together. You’ll see that this is what you truly desire, what She-Hulk desires, to rule over inferiors without having to submit to the petty house rules set by the other holier-than-thou superhumans. I’d like at least four children. What about you?”