by Stan Lee
Copyright © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Disney Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.
ISBN 978-1-4231-9049-3
Visit disneybooks.com and disneyzodiac.com
Contents
Dedication
Part One: Convergence Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two: The Recruits Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Part Three: The Siege Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Part Four: Dragon’s Gate Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
About the Creators
DEDICATED TO EVERYONE WHO LOVES FANTASY AND HIGH ADVENTURE VIA TALES THAT TITILLATE AND THRILL THE IMAGINATION. WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, ISN’T THAT REALLY ALL OF US?
—S.L.
FOR LIZ
—S.M.
FOR STEPH, ZOE, AND BUBBA2
—A.T.
THERE WAS SOMETHING odd about the tour guide. She was tall, with long hair, and she seemed to know a lot about Chinese history—as she should, working in a museum. But as Steven Lee listened to her, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t quite what she seemed.
“The New China Heritage Museum first opened five years ago,” the guide said. “It was designed to resemble a traditional Chinese quadrangle house, with several buildings surrounding a central courtyard.”
Steven raised his hand. Mr. Singh, the teacher, nodded to him.
“Was it always planned to be a museum?” Steven asked.
“Yes,” the guide replied. She seemed distracted; her eyes darted quickly around the room. “I mean, no. Maybe. I think it was supposed to be a hotel?”
Steven frowned. A hotel? That didn’t sound right. And the guide didn’t sound very sure of herself.
The rest of the class just nodded.
Steven looked around the room. Its high walls were covered with intricate wooden carvings, stained-glass windows, and stylized artwork depicting ancient peasants with their oxen. A couple of large Buddha statues stood in the center of the room.
“The earliest books were manufactured in China,” the guide said, gesturing toward a glass case. “Even before the invention of paper, writing was printed on materials like bone, wood, and, uh…” She trailed off.
Steven’s friend Harani stepped forward. “And what?” she asked.
“Umm…” The guide had pulled out her phone and stood frowning at it. “Uh, plastic…”
Mr. Singh cocked his head. “Excuse me, ma’am. Did…did you say plastic?”
“Did I?” She smiled distantly. “That’s silly, of course. I meant, uh…aluminum foil.”
That’s definitely not right, Steven thought.
“This woman is way off-script,” Harani whispered, leaning in close to Steven. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face and she wore a bright orange sweater.
“I know, right?” Steven replied. “And what’s she doing now?”
The guide was jabbing at her phone’s screen, shaking her head.
Harani smiled. “Maybe she’s waiting for a better job offer.”
Then he noticed the guide’s name tag: It read Jumanne. Steven frowned; the woman sounded Chinese, but the name didn’t. Then again, Steven looked Chinese, and his name was American—a fact that had surprised a few of the locals in Hong Kong on this very trip.
Ryan, a friendly kid with red hair, pushed in between Steven and Harani. “Hey, Lee,” Ryan said. “You see this?”
Ryan pointed at a display case. Inside it, a very old printed book stood propped open. A few Chinese characters ran down the side, but the page was dominated by an old-style etching, a stylized drawing of a man in robes shooting some kind of lightning out of his hand.
Steven blinked. “We’ve been over this, Ryan. I don’t know what everything here says,” he said.
“I know, dude, but it’s not that—the guy in the drawing. He looks like a crazy super hero!”
“He looks like that guy,” Harani said. She pointed at Steven’s chest.
Steven looked from the book down to the image on his T-shirt. It showed a dark-skinned man in metallic armor, his hand crackling with energy.
Steven looked up at Harani in disbelief. “You mean the Steel Mongoose?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“You’ve never heard of the Steel Mongoose?” Steven continued. “African adventurer Bob Mugabi, who found himself critically injured and built a high-tech exoskeleton that gives him the powers of a cute but deadly wild animal?”
“Is, uh, is he in comic books?” Harani asked.
“No. Maybe, I dunno. He only starred in Steel Mongoose 3, the top-grossing film of last year! It was playing on the flight?”
“I like poetry,” she said.
Then Harani looked past him and grimaced. Steven turned to see Mr. Singh glaring at them from a few feet away.
“We better cool it,” Harani whispered.
Ryan laughed. “You and your heroes, Lee. They’re not real, you know.”
Harani and Ryan moved off. Steven lingered behind for a moment, staring at the book in the case. The strange image of the man with the lightning bolts seemed to stare back at him, as if it were speaking to him through the ages.
“Hey, Lee,” Ryan called. “Take a look at this.”
Steven crossed over to the wall. Ryan had stopped next to a big empty case with a sign reading, in English and Chinese: EXHIBIT REMOVED FOR REPAIRS.
“Sucks, huh?” Ryan said. “This thing must be fifteen feet tall.”
Steven peered closer. Inside the case was a small cardboard standup with a picture of the missing exhibit: a large flat disk, etched with a series of concentric circles and lines. The lines formed hundreds of tiny boxes, each filled with one or more ancient Chinese characters. Notches studded the outer part, marked with numbers from 0 to 360. A label read: Shipan—Astrological Compass. C. 200 B.C.
“My grandfather,” Steven said. “He’s got one of those. Well, his is a lot smaller. I think he brought it over from China.” Steven pointed. “The markings are the names of stars in the sky.”
“I like your grandpa,” Ryan said. “He makes those tasty little salty peapods. Yo, we better get moving.”
; Ryan started off after Harani and the rest of the class, who had gathered around a large Buddha statue. But Steven hesitated. He looked around at the rugs and weathered maps covering the walls. The glass cases holding ancient pieces of bone and pottery. An exhibit of Cantonese opera showing people in bright, lavish costumes. The vast history and culture of China preserved in this place.
Steven hadn’t wanted to come to Hong Kong. He liked his home in suburban Philadelphia, his big TV and his Xbox and his Blu-ray collection of superhero movies. But his parents had insisted. “You should see China,” his father had said. “You have to be in a place to understand it. You need to know where you came from.”
It must have been important, Steven knew, because his father rarely spoke for that long. In fact, Steven’s parents weren’t around much; ever since he could remember, they’d been busy running their company, seven days a week. But grandfather was always around, with his awesome cooking and his warm smile and his long stories about old China.
I should listen to those stories more, Steven thought.
He gazed over at the class. Harani asked the guide another question. Steven couldn’t hear the answer, but some of the other kids laughed. Mr. Singh frowned, leaning forward to reprimand them gently.
Standing apart from the class, Steven suddenly felt very lonely, very much out of place. Just two weeks…he thought. But I’m already looking forward to getting home.
He looked down at his shirt again. He stared at the determined, muscular figure of the Steel Mongoose, fists glowing with righteous power.
“Mr. Lee!”
Mr. Singh was glaring at him. The class was marching through a high archway into an adjacent exhibit space. Frowning, Steven started forward to join them.
Then he stopped in his tracks.
The scream was quiet—so faint that Steven could barely make it out. But it felt deep and resonant, and it penetrated right into his skull. It sounded like someone—a man or woman, Steven couldn’t tell—howling in agony.
Steven whirled around, trying to locate the source of the scream. It seemed to be coming from the far wall. Two huge ornate rugs covered most of the wall, with a small door between them.
Then the noise was gone.
Steven frowned. Did I really hear that? he wondered. He shook his head and started toward the archway—then stopped again as the scream sounded once more.
The class had moved on to the next room. But the guide, the strange woman named Jumanne, stood alone now. She stared intently at her phone, then glanced up at the door—the one between the two rugs. The door the screams had come from.
Instinctively, Steven moved behind a Buddha statue. He peered around the side, watching Jumanne as her eyes flicked from the door back to the phone, and then to the door again. She looked like she was trying to make a decision.
Then she tossed the phone aside and strode toward the door. Her whole demeanor seemed different now; she wasn’t awkward or distracted at all. She moved quickly, with purpose. Her eyes were sharp and hard.
Steven ducked from one Buddha to the next, moving closer. The woman didn’t notice him.
Jumanne reached out and pushed the door open. Casting a quick, grim glance backward, she disappeared into the darkness. The door swung shut behind her.
Steven looked around again. He was alone in the exhibit hall. Even the guards had gone, following the students into the next room.
He sprinted over to the door the woman had passed through. It bore a red sign reading: NO ENTRY. MUSEUM PERSONNEL ONLY.
Steven grabbed hold of the door handle. Then he stopped and turned to look back at the archway. I should go back to the class, he thought. This is a foreign country. I could get in a lot of trouble.
Then he heard the scream again. It was louder this time, and higher-pitched. Someone, he realized, is in a lot of pain.
He glanced down again at the image on his T-shirt. He thought of the woman, the tour guide. Was she in trouble on the other side of this door? Or had she gone through to save someone who was?
Maybe I should just see if anyone needs help, he thought.
As he pushed the door open, he realized he was smiling.
STEVEN TOOK a step forward into the darkness. He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Then he stopped short.
The floor dropped off just ahead of him, descending into a long stairway. It was made of wood, with a creaky old railing beside it. The walls were worn metal, stained and weathered by time.
Steven sucked in a breath. The air was stale and quiet. Whatever this place is, he thought, it’s a lot older than the museum.
Once again, he hesitated. He leaned forward, but he couldn’t see more than a few steps down. There was no way to tell where it went, or how far down it stretched.
Suddenly, the scream rang out again, deep and resonant.
Steven pulled out his phone. Shining it like a weak flashlight, he started down the staircase. The steps sagged under his feet, and the railing felt like it might snap off in his hand. The light from his phone illuminated a few steps at a time, but that was all.
Soon he couldn’t see the door anymore, either.
I’m headed deep underground, Steven thought, but sideways, too. I think we’re going…away from the museum?
The scream rose to a high pitch, then went silent again.
Steven tried to keep track of how far he’d traveled. But he hadn’t thought to start counting steps at the beginning, and now it was impossible to tell where he was.
“Oh!” Steven cried as he stumbled, reaching the staircase’s abrupt end. Something lay at his feet, crumpled in a shapeless lump.
For a terrible moment, he thought it was a body.
Grimacing, afraid to look, he leaned down and touched it. With relief, he realized it was just a pile of cloth—a uniform, like the ones worn by the guides at the museum. Something sharp pricked his finger, and he felt a small hard object pinned to the uniform.
Wincing, he lifted the object. It was a name tag.
Jumanne.
A million thoughts raced through Steven’s brain. Had the guide changed clothes down here for some reason, hastily tossing her old uniform aside? Had she been attacked?
The stairwell was still dark, but Steven’s eyes were starting to adjust. Just ahead, a metal door loomed at the end of the passageway. He tossed the clothing aside and felt around until his hand closed over a doorknob.
For a moment, he thought about turning and running back up the stairs. Then he glanced at the discarded uniform, crumpled on the floor. His heart skipped a beat.
If somebody’s in trouble…
He pushed open the door and stepped forward. Then he gasped.
Steven stood on a thin catwalk running all the way around a large, perfectly circular room. The room was dark, lit only slightly from the floor below.
Steven realized that the catwalk frighteningly didn’t have a railing. He stepped forward carefully, peering over the edge. Ten or twelve feet below, a dozen round circles were arrayed around the edges of the chamber, each about the size of a wading pool. Looking closer, he noticed they actually were pools, filled with some strange, shimmering liquid. They radiated a pale, eerie greenish light into the room.
The room was quiet. If someone had been screaming in here, they’d stopped now.
Steven looked up. The chamber stretched far upward, several stories high. Its walls were made of metal and tapered, narrowing toward the ceiling like an upside-down ice-cream cone. This gave the room a claustrophobic feel, despite its immense size.
Round holes and old support struts dotted the walls, as if other catwalks had once been mounted there and then removed. And at the narrow top of the chamber, where the walls converged almost to a point, a large flat disk had been mounted on the ceiling. It looked very old, and on its visible side, facing down, it was marked with a very familiar set of numbers and boxes.
That’s the—what was it called?—the shipan! Steven realized. The exhibit from upstairs, the
one that had been removed for repairs.
The one that looks like grandfather’s little compass.
Steven sucked in a deep breath. What was going on? What was this room, anyway? What were those mysterious pools of liquid? Why had a valuable exhibit from the museum been installed in such a bizarre place?
And how did the mysterious Jumanne fit in?
In the exact center of the room, a group of lights winked on. Steven blinked and saw a small elevated stage with three people standing on it. The stage was covered with computers, monitors, and technical equipment, all rigged up in a crazy tangle of wires and cables.
The people wore baggy jumpsuits and held clipboards and tablet computers. One of them, a serious-looking technician with thin glasses, looked up, away from Steven. “Sorry, Maxwell,” he called out. “Just a minor power glitch.”
Steven followed the technician’s gaze. Partway across the room, a large figure hovered in midair. He was lit from below by one of the pools so Steven couldn’t make out his features; but his body was coiled, his fists clenched. The pool below him seemed to glow slightly brighter than the others, casting long, imposing shadows along his body.
When the man—Maxwell—spoke, his voice was deep and commanding. “Is it repaired now?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the technician replied.
Maxwell reached out a hand and pointed to another pool. Now Steven could see: Maxwell was astride a one-person hover-vehicle, sort of a crazy, higher-tech version of a Segway. And around Maxwell’s outstretched arm—around his entire body, in fact—a greenish glow radiated, a fainter version of the glow from the pools below.
“Then proceed,” Maxwell said. “And Carlos?”
The technician cocked his head. He seemed agitated, even a bit fearful.
“I’m counting on you,” Maxwell finished.
Carlos nodded. He cast a nervous glance around the chamber, from the compass on the roof down the sides to the catwalk. His eyes almost met Steven’s, and for a moment Steven was afraid Carlos had spotted him.
Then Carlos turned away, issuing a series of orders to the other techs. The three technicians consulted a bank of monitors, their eyes darting quickly from screen to screen.