by Stan Lee
Josie opened her mouth to snap at him—then stopped dead, almost losing her balance. Nicky skidded to a halt just behind her. Steven almost stumbled into them.
Up ahead a heavily ornamented cannon from Tsarist Russia stood against one wall, next to an Egyptian statue. An ancient Viking longboat, chipped and faded, stood opposite them.
In the narrow space between the artifacts, Snake stood blocking the passageway. Monkey crouched on the rim of the Viking boat, his elongated toes gripping its edge.
Steven suddenly felt very tired. I can’t fight them, he thought. I have no power left.
The Tiger is gone.
Snake stepped forward, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. She walked up to Josie, who looked away.
“Her file,” Snake said, “is about to read ‘Deactivated.’”
Josie stood in the dank tunnel, keeping her eyes averted. Snake, she knew, could hypnotize anyone—even another Zodiac—in a matter of seconds.
And I’m not even a Zodiac anymore, Josie thought.
Steven, the kid, was hanging back, watching. Nicky made a subtle move, edging around the Viking longboat. He’s gonna make a break for it, Josie realized. The idiot.
Sure enough, Monkey leaped into the air and landed right in Nicky’s path. “Don’t try it,” Monkey said. “We got orders from Maxwell.”
“Dude,” Nicky replied, “you’ve really changed.”
That’s true, Josie thought. Maxwell had done something to Monkey, altered his mind with the power of the Dragon. Now Monkey was utterly loyal. There was no hope of reaching him, of persuading him to let them go.
Snake on the other hand…
“What’s the matter, Josie?” Snake asked. “Afraid to look me in the eye?”
Josie didn’t look up. “You’re backing the wrong horse, Celine,” she said. “Uh, no pun intended.”
Snake—Celine—cast an amused glance at Steven. “So you’re on his side now?”
“No!” Josie clenched her fists. “It’s like I told you last time we met. Maxwell is dangerous.”
“Dangerous to you,” Snake said.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“You ran out last year,” Snake hissed, “leaving me and Vincent—Vincent!—to pull Maxwell out of Jasmine’s clutches. I let you go then. Now you come crawling back and you want me to do it again? You want me to turn traitor just so you can save your own skin?”
“We ain’t traitors,” Monkey said.
“Nope,” Steven said. “You’re just losers.”
Monkey turned toward Steven, his grin growing even wider. He loped over and stared Steven right in the eye.
“You don’t look like a Tiger no more,” Monkey said.
Snake was still staring at Josie. Josie squirmed, avoiding her hypnotic glare.
“You want to go free?” Snake said. “Then fight me. Come on, Josie. Let’s see some of that famous Horse action.”
Josie shook her head. “I’m not the Horse,” she said. “Not anymore.”
“Not…” Snake frowned. “What happened?”
“Maxwell happened,” Josie replied. “And he’s not gonna stop with us. Sooner or later he’ll take your powers, too.”
Snake was silent. For the first time, her face showed a flicker of doubt.
Can I get through to her? Josie wondered. Maybe so. Maybe—
“No powers?” Monkey asked.
He leaped up on top of the Russian cannon, swinging his feet around a large growling lion’s head carved beneath the barrel. Then he jumped off and swept out a long arm to cuff Nicky on the side of the head.
“Ow,” Nicky said.
“No powers!” Monkey repeated. “That’s gotta hurt.”
“Vincent,” Snake called. “None of your game, just subdue them. Let’s wrap this up.”
Josie saw her chance. While Snake was distracted, Josie chopped her in the throat. Snake let out a strangled yell and fell to the ground.
“Run!” Josie yelled. She took a step—
—and then Monkey was on top of her. His huge bare feet kicked out, his enormous fists jabbing into her face and ribs. As Josie dropped, she looked up and saw a simian energy-form rise up to surround its smiling host.
He’s powerful, she thought. But he’s sloppy—always has been.
And I was a fighter long before I had Zodiac powers.
She shot upward and slammed her head into his solar plexus. Monkey flew into the air, yelping and grabbing at his stomach. He bounced hard off the ceiling and dropped back down, limbs flailing. He reached out with his feet and grabbed onto the head of the Egyptian statue, wobbling until he came to rest.
The statue depicted a crouching dog god, with long ears and elegant paws. I remember that mission, Josie realized. That was back before I had powers. Before any of us did.
Back when we were all friends.
Monkey glared down at her. He didn’t look amused anymore. His grin had turned to a sneer of pure cruelty.
“One shot,” he said. “That’s all you get.”
Josie flinched, but it was no use. Monkey leaped toward her, punching again, kicking and slashing. She cried out and tried to scramble backward, to find some space to move. But this time he was giving her no quarter, no room. No opportunity to get the upper hand.
“You ain’t Zodiac, lady,” Monkey said. “You ain’t one of us. Not anymore.”
It was true. And in the end, it made all the difference.
When Monkey finally stopped hitting her, Josie lay limp on the floor. With a great effort, she raised her head and wiped the blood from her face.
A bleak mood came over her. This couldn’t have ended any other way, she thought. We were doomed, lost, from the minute we defied Maxwell. My whole life…it’s just been one defeat after another.
Over by the Viking longboat, Nicky was down on his knees. He stared straight up into the face of Snake, who stood haughty and imperious above him. Her green eyes glowed with Zodiac power, holding her prey motionless before her.
And Steven…
Oh, kid, she thought. Kid. Well done.
Josie coughed blood. Despite the pain, she started to laugh.
Monkey glared down at her. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
Josie smiled. “He’s gone.”
Steven sprinted down the tunnel, legs pumping. His muscles ached, his lungs cried out for breath. He wasn’t used to exerting himself without the Tiger power. Now he was just an ordinary kid.
An ordinary kid with superpowered villains on his tail.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t dare. He thought of Josie and Nicky and felt a pang of guilt. I abandoned them. They helped me escape, and I left them back there. Who knows what Maxwell’s gonna do to ’em?
He knew it had been a rational decision. Josie and Nicky were soldiers, and even they were no match for Snake’s and Monkey’s powers. One kid, one ordinary kid, wouldn’t have made any difference in that fight.
Besides, Josie and Nicky hadn’t helped him out of the goodness of their hearts. They’d used him to escape as much as he’d used them.
Still, leaving them wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t the heroic thing.
Maybe I can rescue them later, he thought. Maybe I can bring back help. But even in his mind, the idea sounded weak, like he was trying to make himself feel better about doing something bad.
The tunnel was particularly dark there. A lot of the lights had burned out. Steven’s foot landed in a puddle, making an audible splash. He rounded a corner, edging past a Sherman tank that had somehow been crammed into the passageway.
Then he stopped.
A Vanguard tactical team faced him. Six—no, seven soldiers in full body armor, with helmets that covered their faces, blocked the passage, from the left wall all the way to the edge of the tank on the right. And every one of them held up a big glowing energy rifle, aimed straight at Steven.
The leader’s voice sounded metallic, filtered through his helmet. “
Playtime’s over, kid. Stand down. Now.”
Steven shook his head, almost compulsively. No, he thought. No, it can’t end this way. Not after all that. I just escaped ten freaking minutes ago!
“Don’t make us hurt you,” the leader said.
“’Cause we can hurt you,” another soldier added, hefting his weapon. “A lot.”
Steven clenched his fists in frustration and closed his eyes. Tiger, he thought, I really need you now. I summon the power. I summon the power of the Tiger!
Nothing.
The tac team leader lowered his weapon. He stepped forward and reached out a hand for Steven. Steven stepped back against the Sherman tank, shaking his head. He was outgunned, defeated, helpless.
In the corner of his vision, he saw something swoop through the air.
He whipped his head around and gasped. A dozen small men, maybe more, had descended on the tac team, whipping and soaring around them on ropes hanging from the ceiling. The men moved soundlessly, landing blows on the tac team’s helmets and then leaping back upward to vanish briefly in the shadows.
The tac team stumbled, waving their weapons around. But the little men were too fast, too agile. They pressed on with their assault, swinging up and down on their ropes, not giving the tac team room enough to aim their weapons. A familiar glow appeared around the men whenever they struck a blow.
Zodiac energy, Steven realized. That’s a Zodiac glow. But how?
Then a small man was at his elbow. He wore a long cloak with a hood that covered the top of his head. A high collar apparatus stretched over his nose and mouth, leaving only his beady eyes visible.
“Come on,” the man said.
He ushered Steven behind the Sherman tank, to a small space up against the tunnel wall. Steven shook his head; there was barely enough room for the two of them. And the tac team was sure to find them hiding there, once they’d fought off the little men.
But the hooded man reached out and touched a spot on the wall. A small door slid open silently. The man crouched down and started to crawl through the opening.
Steven hesitated.
The man turned and stared at him. “You want to live?”
Steven nodded and followed him.
The crawl space was low, barely high enough for Steven to fit inside. He followed the man down, around sharp turns and into narrow areas they both had to squeeze through. The air grew even hotter, more humid than in the outside tunnel. Steven found himself sweating.
The tunnel seemed endless. After a while, Steven couldn’t tell how far they’d gone. He hardly even knew which way was up.
Eventually, they came out in a larger chamber, about the size of a small bedroom. A ragged sofa and a couple of folding chairs sat before a bulky CRT monitor set in the stone wall. The furniture looked as if it had been scavenged from a dumpster.
By the time the little man lowered his hood and collar, Steven had already figured out who he was. A Vanguard agent, the only Zodiac Steven had never met. The man in the shadows.
“Rat,” Steven said.
Rat’s mouth stretched into a smile, and he made an elaborate bow.
“My friends call me Thiago,” he said. “Or they would if I had friends.”
Thiago stepped forward. Steven backed up, keeping his distance. Rat was rumored to be the least trustworthy of the Zodiacs. Steven had no idea what his intentions might be.
“Easy,” Rat said. “I just saved you, remember?”
“Yeah,” Steven replied. “But why?”
“I could answer that,” Rat replied. “But it’s better if someone else does.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat white disk. He held it forward. Steven hesitated, but Rat shook the disk, insisting. Steven stared, suddenly recognizing the object.
“An oracle bone?” he asked.
He accepted the disk, holding it gingerly. For a moment, he thought it was one of the ancient writing tablets he’d seen in the old man’s room back in Berlin. But no—this was the modern version. It was a high-tech object, like the one he’d received anonymously the previous year.
“Read it,” Rat said.
As Steven watched, small gray lines appeared on the white surface. Driven by circuitry inside the oracle bone, the lines resolved into letters, forming a message:
DEAREST STEVEN,
I KNOW YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, AND IT’S TIME FOR ANSWERS. PLEASE ALLOW THIAGO TO BRING YOU TO SYDNEY. I PROMISE I’LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW.
When he read the signature below the message, Steven felt cold. He turned to Thiago. The Rat lay lounging on the couch, reading a magazine.
“Okay,” Steven said.
Then he looked back down at the oracle bone, wondering if he’d read it correctly. Yes, the message was still the same. And at the bottom, the gray lines spelled out a single unmistakable word:
MOM
“YOU’RE WASTING TIME,” Ox said. “Either take me with you or lock me up and get out of here.”
Liam glared at him. “Tell me the story.”
“I’ve already told you. A dozen times.”
“Then let’s make it thirteen.”
They sat together in a small interrogation room. Ox leaned forward against the table, his hands clasped. His face was rigid, unreadable.
Liam tipped his chair back, bracing his feet against the bottom of the table. He wanted to seem casual, in control. But he was anxious.
I vouched for this guy, Liam thought. I convinced the others to trust him. And now…
“You’ve got a camera, mate.” Liam pointed at Ox’s forehead, just above his eyes. “Right behind your bloody dermis. It sees everything you do.”
“Looks that way,” Ox replied.
“Care to explain how it got there?”
“What’s the difference? You’ve already made up your mind.” Ox gestured up at the wall, which they both knew concealed a surveillance camera. “Or at least, your friends have. They’re watching right now, aren’t they?”
Liam rose slowly to his feet, clenching his fists. “I stood up for you,” he said, “and you played me.”
“Played you?” Ox shook his head violently. “You’re like children. Little kids tangling with adults. Maxwell’s gonna squash you.”
“And you’d like that.”
“If I wanted that, I wouldn’t be here.” Ox paused. “You’re already down two members. You go after Maxwell, you’re gonna need every ounce of Zodiac power you can get. You need me.”
Liam glared down at Ox’s defiant face.
“As for the transmitter…” Ox jabbed a thumb into his own forehead. “For the last time, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know how it got there. I don’t know how long I’ve had it. I had no idea it existed until your friends found it.”
Liam felt a rage building inside him. In his past, back home in Northern Ireland, that kind of anger had usually led to violence.
“You’re a bloody liar,” he spat.
Ox jumped to his feet. The two men leaned toward each other, their fingers gripping the sides of the table. Their faces almost touched.
“I’m not a liar,” Ox said, his voice very even. “Whatever else you think of me, you know that.”
Liam looked away. “Dragon’s Gate,” he muttered.
Ox peered sideways at him. “What about it?”
“What happened, a year ago? Down in the caverns?” Liam sat back down, forcing himself to be calm. “You were fighting us, and then you disappeared.”
Ox frowned. Suspicion and doubt seemed to alternate on his face.
“You gonna tell the truth now?” Liam asked.
Ox pulled his chair closer and sat down. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know? Don’t know what?” Liam gestured wide with his arms. “Whether you’ve told me the truth?”
“I don’t know what happened! In the caverns.” Ox looked away, troubled. “Last thing I remember is you. Slamming into me with that crazy cannonball move of
yours.”
Despite himself, Liam smiled. “That was one of my better moments, aye.”
“I woke up hours later,” Ox continued.
“Not possible, mate,” Liam replied. “The whole chamber collapsed. We barely got out alive.”
“I wasn’t in the main chamber. I was in a narrow side cavern.” Ox pressed his fingers against his temples, as if trying to force a memory to the surface. “It was reinforced with metal beams, like somebody had prepared it specially. Took me most of a day to tunnel my way out.”
“And you were alone? There was nobody around?”
“That’s ri—” Ox stopped. His eyes went wide, and he blinked twice.
“What?” Liam leaned forward, staring at him. “What is it?”
“I was groggy from the fight,” Ox said. His voice was almost a whisper. “I must have been drugged. So I didn’t remember this until just now….”
“Spit it out, man.”
“I think I saw Rat.”
It was Liam’s turn to blink in surprise. He cast a glance up at the hidden camera, knowing that Roxanne and the others were watching.
“Rat,” Liam repeated. “Where was this? In the side cavern?”
“No. Before that, in the main cave.” Ox turned toward Liam now, as if asking him for help. “Somebody…someone was dragging me across the stone floor. I woke up for just a second—I remember now! I looked up and I saw his beady little face.”
“Rat!” Liam paused, thinking. “Was he along on your mission that day?”
“Yeah. But we didn’t see much of him after we arrived.” Ox frowned again. “You got to understand, we never knew what Rat was up to. Even before he had Zodiac powers, that guy was running schemes within schemes. Maxwell allowed it, so long as he was useful, that’s what the Vanguard Black Ops team was there for.”
“And then what? What happened?”
“He leaned down—Rat—he put some kind of gun in my face and squirted gas at me.” Ox exhaled heavily. “That’s all I remember.”
“Until you woke up in the little cavern.”
Ox looked at Liam and nodded.
Liam studied him for a moment. At the beginning of the interrogation, Ox had seemed sullen, defiant. All that was gone now. He seemed spent, almost relieved, as if he’d purged himself of something he’d been carrying around for a long time.