by Stan Lee
Again he felt the rage. The Dragon is mine, he thought. No pretender, no traitorous little girl, will take it from me.
“This is calculated,” he said aloud. “This is rational.”
He reached out with his terrible bat-wings. The other Dragon, Jasmine’s snakelike avatar, flinched away at its touch. But he grabbed hold and held on tight, drinking in its fear and helplessness.
Then he began to feed.
“WELCOME TO GREENLAND,” Jasmine said, holding up four heavy coats.
They’d landed at a small coastal airfield. Now they stood outside on a bare, almost deserted runway. The air was very cold, and the ground beyond the airport looked rocky. Steven could see snowy mountains in the distance.
“Ah, Greenland!” Liam said, as if he were just now recognizing the name. “Where it’s always cold as a witch’s—”
“—pointy hat,” Kim finished.
Liam looked at her, surprised. Kim flashed him a quick, mischievous smile, and he grinned back.
“Let’s go, comedians,” Jasmine said.
She led them across the airfield to a battered, rugged Humvee with oversized tires. Kim and Liam climbed into the backseat, and Steven took shotgun, next to Jasmine. He barely had time to strap in before she slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
As they drove inland, the roads changed from tar to dirt to snow. The Humvee swerved and slipped a few times, but Jasmine kept it on the road. The mountains loomed closer, and a nasty pattern of dark clouds seemed to be gathering above it.
“Is there a storm coming?” Steven asked.
“Probably,” Jasmine replied. “We get a lot of them out here.”
Steven wondered how far they were going. He turned around to say something to Kim; he could barely admit it, but he thought she was cute. When he looked at her, she was staring out the window in openmouthed wonder.
Suddenly Steven couldn’t think of anything to say.
Finally Jasmine yelled out: “Last stop!”
Steven peered ahead. Just before the mountains, a low plateau rose up, about the size of a city block but rounded and uneven in shape. It was three stories high, covered with ice and snow. It looked like a completely natural artifact.
Steven turned to Jasmine, baffled. “This is the last stop?”
Jasmine steered the Humvee straight toward the icy face of the plateau. Then, grinning, she pressed down hard on the accelerator. As the snowy rock-wall drew closer, Steven gripped his seat in panic.
Just in time, an opening appeared in the side of the rock. It swiveled upward like a garage door, forming an entrance big enough to drive a bus through. As they drove through the dark entrance, the bottom of the garage door slid up. The roof of the Humvee just made it underneath the ceiling. Steven flinched.
Jasmine laughed and pressed down twice on the horn. “Is, uh, is that some secret signal?” Steven asked.
“Nah,” she replied. “I just like doing it.”
She swung the vehicle around to the left, cutting the headlights. Stage lights clicked on above, revealing a high-ceilinged garage area. The door swung shut again, leaving barely a seam in the wall.
Steven stared around at a variety of vehicles, all designed for difficult terrains: pickup trucks, construction equipment, jeeps—even a dump truck. The room smelled like gasoline.
As Jasmine turned off the engine, a large woman in an oil-smeared jumpsuit ran up to greet them. “Long trip,” the woman said.
Jasmine smiled. “Hey, Mags. We brought the Humvee home in one piece.”
The woman frowned, running her eyes across the dirty vehicle. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Kim crept out of the backseat, looking around the room warily. Liam followed, shaking his head and grimacing.
“After that ride, I’m really glad I’m indestructible,” he said.
“See you picked up some hitchhikers,” Mags said to Jasmine.
Jasmine smiled. “You wouldn’t believe what we picked up.”
As they climbed out of the Humvee, Jasmine held up her arms. Energy flared all along her body, rising to form the now-familiar sparkling Dragon shape. The Dragon turned ethereal eyes toward Mags, who raised an eyebrow but didn’t flinch.
“Seen it,” Mags said. “Your other two power-kids are already here. Still, nice makeover.”
“Sorry.” Jasmine let the energy fade. “Can’t resist showing it off.”
Mags shook her head at the Humvee. “This thing is filthy. I’ll have to wash it and change the oil. Mind getting out of my way?”
“Come on, kids,” Jasmine said. “Let’s go. We’ll get you settled.”
Steven hesitated. Settled? he thought. I don’t even know what that means anymore.
“Nobody argues with Jasmine, kid,” Mags said. “You better do what she says.”
Steven cocked his head. “She’s tough, huh?”
Mags smiled then, and elbowed Jasmine in the ribs. “I’ve seen tougher.”
Jasmine laughed.
Steven looked from one of them to the other. Then he locked eyes for a moment with Kim, who nodded to him, and then Liam. They were all thinking the same thing: the people here regarded Jasmine not just as a boss—or a Dragon—but as a friend. Whatever else might happen, whatever dangers lay in their future, that was a good sign.
So, as Mags started hosing down the dirty jeep, Steven let Jasmine lead him and the others deeper into the rocky compound.
First she took them to a small galley, where a Russian woman brought out soup and sandwiches. Steven wolfed the food down; he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Kim ate two servings, and Liam had three.
Then Jasmine gave them a brief tour. They passed by a library, a small screening room furnished with old car seats, and an indoor tennis court with a half-collapsed net. Everything seemed cheaply constructed, hastily thrown together.
“We don’t have anywhere near as many resources as Maxwell,” Jasmine said, leading him down a narrow hallway. “But we make do.”
Steven peered through a small glass window set into a door. Inside, a couple of women dressed in fatigues practiced their shooting on a cramped firing range.
“How many people do you have here?” he asked.
“Between fifteen and twenty-five. It changes all the time. Some of them live here all the time, while others come and go.”
“And those people do…what?” Steven asked. “Plan to stop Maxwell?”
“Among other things,” Jasmine replied. “Carlos also has some research projects going. We shelter refugees, too—people with nowhere else to go.”
“Where is Carlos, anyway?” Liam asked. “I miss that twitchy genius fella.”
“We’ll get to him soon. First, let me show you where you’ll be training.”
The training room looked like an old gymnasium. It stretched up two stories high, its white floor dotted with exercise mats. Jasmine led the group across the floor to the far side, past punching bags with stuffing leaking out of them.
Steven smiled at the sight of a frayed climbing rope, hanging loose from the ceiling. “Where’d you get this stuff?” he asked. “They tear down a playground next door?”
“Like I said, we make do.” Jasmine glared at him, pretending to be annoyed. “Nobody likes a smart-mouth Tiger, you know.”
Up ahead, a workout was in progress. Roxanne hung gracefully from a jungle gym, swinging herself along from bar to bar. When she reached the end, she jumped down to land in a perfect crouch. Then she raised her arms, calling out in triumph to an imaginary audience.
“Thank you!” Roxanne cried. “Les Poules, yeeahhhh!”
Kim leaned over to whisper to Steven. “Who’s Less Pools?”
“It’s her band,” he replied.
Kim frowned. “Does she know they’re not here?”
Roxanne ran a hand across her forehead, wiping off the sweat. “Yo, Tiger!” she called. “You done rounding up all the strays?”
Jasmine stepped forward, gesturing. “Roxanne, thi
s is Liam. He’s our Ram. And Kim, the Rabbit.”
“Hey, girl.” Roxanne leaned down to smirk at Kim. “Let me do your hair later, okay?”
Kim peered at her suspiciously.
Roxanne whirled around. “Duane! What else you got for me?”
A tall young man with dreadlocks stood at a freestanding computer display jutting up from the floor behind the jungle gym. He stared at the screen, his eyes moving swiftly back and forth across its surface.
“That’s Duane,” Roxanne said. “He does not talk much.”
Steven studied Duane for a moment. The last member of the team, Steven thought. Carlos had warned them that Duane could be very reserved at times. How would he fit in with the others in a combat situation?
A quick smile flickered across Duane’s face. He reached out and touched an icon on the screen.
The jungle gym let out a low whirring noise and began to drop down into the floor. When it was all the way down, the floor panel snapped into place above it.
“Better back up,” Jasmine said, ushering Steven, Liam, and Kim away. “Let Roxanne finish her session.”
Suddenly a small metal cage dropped from the ceiling. It descended straight down, enclosing Roxanne within its bars.
Roxanne looked panicked. She opened her mouth and let out a sharp, loud sonic cry. But it flew wide, diffusing in the air. The bars of the cage rattled noisily, but remained sealed tight.
“Rooster! Remember what we talked about,” Jasmine called out. “Pinpoint control.”
Roxanne nodded. She furrowed her brow in concentration and fixed her eyes on a single point, then cried out again. This time, the sonic energy struck in one spot. The cage rattled noisily, and a large segment snapped apart.
Roxanne walked out, nodding proudly. “That all you got?” she asked, turning toward Duane.
Duane looked up from his work, just once. Then he returned his gaze to the control screen, his lips moving silently as he tapped out another command.
Two thick metal poles sprouted from the floor. Their tips slid open to reveal Tasers, crackling with electric power.
Liam grimaced. “Got zapped with one of those things a few years back on a dare. It’s not what ye call fun.”
“They’re low power, for training purposes only,” Jasmine said. “For training purposes only. Though we’ve juiced ’em up a little bit for Zodiac-power practice.”
Both Tasers fired at once, shooting toward Roxanne on thin wires. She watched them come, then let out a quick sonic burst, and another. The Tasers sparked and stopped short in midair, then fell to the ground.
Roxanne smiled, casting her gaze across the spectators. “That is how it’s done,” she said.
“You’ll all be ‘doing’ here,” Jasmine said, turning back to Steven, Kim, and Liam. “Training, I mean. The course is different every time, and we’re building new equipment to test each of your abilities.”
“Duane, we’re through, right?” Roxanne called. “Duane?”
Duane nodded absently. But he kept pecking away at the screen.
Jasmine laughed. “Come on—let’s leave these two to their fun. I’ll show you the labs.”
Steven followed her out of the room, along with Liam and Kim. When he glanced back, Roxanne was under assault from a paintball cannon that had appeared out of the wall. She whipped her head around, blasting two paintballs in midair. But a third one struck her in the stomach, spattering paint across her clothes.
As Steven turned away, he caught a glimpse of Duane’s smiling face. Then he heard Roxanne’s cry:
“Duane!”
CARLO’S LAB WAS HUGE. It took up more than half of the complex’s top floor, a sprawling maze of cubicles, sinks, and private rooms with warning signs on their doors. Men and women in lab coats sat at desks, studying computers and bound notebooks full of notes.
Jasmine gestured at a large open area, where a few scientists stood around something that looked like a large, humming incubator. “Toys,” she said.
As Steven and the others watched, a door labeled CARLOS’S PRIVATE LAB—KEEP OUT! swung open. Carlos strode out, speaking intensely to a dark-skinned man in a lab coat.
“See?” Carlos said, pointing at a tablet computer in the man’s hand. “What do you make of that?”
The man frowned. “It could be an atmospheric disturbance. We are due for a storm.”
“That’s true.” But Carlos didn’t sound convinced.
He looked up and smiled quickly at Jasmine. He started toward her, tossing something green and metallic from one hand to the other. “Ram, Rabbit, Tiger…Dragon,” Carlos said, counting off. “Looks like you got all of them.”
“We got all of them. Nice work in Cape Town.”
Kim pointed at the object in Carlos’s hand. “What’s that?”
Carlos looked at the metallic object as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. “Oh, this? It’s a hypo with a strong neurotoxin in it. I just perfected it—might come in handy.”
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “A strong—”
“—neurotoxin,” Jasmine finished.
Carlos held up the object. It had a sharp metal tip, and its body was clear glass filled with bright green fluid.
Jasmine looked at him as if he were a child. “Put it away, please?” she asked.
Carlos shrugged. He stashed the hypo in his pocket.
“Safety first.” Jasmine smiled indulgently. “So what have you boys been up to?”
“Tracking anomalous energy patterns. Show them, Dafari.”
The other man—Dafari—held up his tablet computer. On the screen, Steven saw a map of a snowy landscape, with a few red icons winking on and off.
“Does that look like Zodiac energy to you?” Carlos asked.
Jasmine gave an exaggerated shrug. “It could be Tetris for all I know.” She gestured at the man in the coat. “Steven, Liam, Kim: this is Dafari. He’s one of the finest hackers in the world.”
“That is what they say.” Dafari smiled, a bit embarrassed. “Jasmine, I have much to tell you about. We have traced many of Maxwell’s financial holdings, and identified some key weaknesses in his security systems. If you should wish to launch an assault on his headquarters, I may be able to get you inside.”
“I think we’re a long way from that,” Jasmine said.
Dafari looked disappointed. “Nevertheless, I have accumulated a great deal of information on the Australian outback—”
“Australia?” Steven asked. “I thought Maxwell was based in Hong Kong.”
“No, that’s just where the Zodiac pools were located,” Jasmine said. “Maxwell’s headquarters is a former military base in Australia. It’s very difficult to approach by land or air.”
“He has high-technology devices,” Dafari said. “Many more than we have.”
“Dafari’s entire family was killed in one of Maxwell’s private wars,” Jasmine explained.
“Ah,” Liam said. “Sorry, mate.”
“Yeah,” Kim added. “Sorry.”
“It is true,” Dafari said. For just a moment, anger flashed across his dark face. Then it was gone again, and he smiled broadly. “But I do not like to think of such things. I prefer to write my lines of code and play with Carlos’s fine computers.”
Steven felt for Dafari. He remembered how it had felt when his own grandfather had died, just days ago. What would it be like to lose everyone you loved? And to know that the man responsible was still out there, plotting and scheming?
Liam moved away from the group, eyeing the various experiments. “Quite a spread ye got here, Carlos. This all of it?”
“Well, the real fun is in there.” He motioned at the door labeled CARLOS’S PRIVATE LAB, and a rare smile spread across his face. “Want to see?”
Liam nodded. “I dunno if it’s the jet lag or sheer disorientation, but I’m suddenly wide awake.”
“Not me,” Steven said. “I’m exhausted.”
“And I’m still hungry.” Kim grinned suddenly at
Jasmine, then at Steven. “Meet you back at the galley?”
With a soft poof, she disappeared. Dafari stood staring, openmouthed, at the spot where Kim had been.
Jasmine laughed. “That’s gonna take some getting used to,” she said.
Carlos turned to Dafari. “You want to take a closer look at those readings?”
Dafari nodded. “I will be in the War Room.”
“War Room?” Steven asked, turning to Jasmine.
“Soon,” she said.
Carlos was already leading Liam toward the closed door. “So what’ve ye got in there?” Liam asked. “Death rays? Cyborgs? Nukes?”
“No nukes,” Carlos replied, deadpan.
Across the room, a puff of smoke rose up from the incubator-machine. The scientists bustled around it, putting out little fires.
Steven felt suddenly overwhelmed. This place, he thought, it never stops. And now it’s my…what? Home?
“Come on,” Jasmine said, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get you settled.”
Two floors down, the living quarters were clustered along both sides of a snaking corridor. Jasmine held up a key card in front of one of the doors. Then she stumbled, holding out a hand to brace herself against the wall.
“You okay?” Steven asked.
She nodded quickly. “Guess I’m tired, too.” She held up the card again, and the door clicked open.
“The Tiger’s lair,” she said. “Wash up and change, but don’t take long. I think something’s up.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Alone now, Steven looked around. The room was small but clean, like a budget hotel room. Clothing lay neatly folded on the twin bed.
Steven picked up the fresh clothes and held them up to the light. Jeans with cargo pockets, a shirt, and a loose jacket. All exactly my size, he noticed. He carried the clothing into the small bathroom. It, too, was neat and well furnished, with little soaps and fresh towels.
A strange feeling washed over Steven. This place, this suite of rooms, seemed exactly the right size, as if it had been made for him. He felt strangely at home—more at home, maybe, than he ever had before, anywhere else he’d lived.