The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence

by Stan Lee

  As he started to unbuckle his belt, he glanced in the mirror. His face was dirty, tired, with big circles under his eyes. He barely recognized himself.

  He leaned against the sink and turned on the tap, then splashed water on his face. He remembered staying up late on school nights, playing games and watching action movies over and over. He’d study the heroes’ fighting moves—but even more than that, he was fascinated by why they did the things they did. Sometimes he’d watch the same scene over and over until he dozed off. Grandfather would come in late, gently take off his shoes, and pull a blanket over him.

  When Steven looked up into the mirror, a faint glow of Tiger energy had risen up around his head. Yellow cat-eyes seemed to stare back at him.

  He leaned forward and growled, a sound that came from somewhere deep inside.

  A wave of exhaustion rolled over him. He stumbled, letting the energy fade. He barely managed to stagger over to the bed and collapse before he fell into a deep sleep.

  Glowing figures appeared in his dreams. One of them had a snake for a head; another was hunched like a rat. Steven tried to run away from them, and discovered he was standing in a giant maze. He darted around one corner, then another. But he could still hear the snake hissing and the rat squeaking, even though he couldn’t see them anymore.

  Then his grandfather was there, standing just ahead of him in the maze. Just as in Steven’s dream on the plane, the old man seemed to be trying to tell him something. But this time, Steven couldn’t make out the words. The old man’s face wouldn’t come into focus. His words sounded like an old tape recording that had been slowed way, way down.

  “I can’t hear you,” Steven said. “I don’t know what you’re telling me.”

  Behind him, the snake hissed again. He felt a moment of terror. He was afraid to turn around—

  —then he woke to a banging on the door.

  “Kid? You alive in there?” Jasmine’s voice came faintly through the door. “Carlos wants us.”

  “Coming!” Steven called.

  He shook himself awake, banishing the dreams. He crossed to the bathroom, feeling once again that this was his room, the place he truly belonged.

  As he started to change clothes, he found he still couldn’t see his grandfather clearly in his mind. But the rat and snake images lingered. Like monsters hiding in the shadows, waiting for their time to strike.

  THE SLEEK GRAY aircraft swooped down through the clouds, shaking and quivering in the storm. Heavy winds blew it first in one direction, then another. Ice pelted its sharp wings.

  When the plane reached an altitude of five hundred feet, it hovered in midair as a hatch slid open on its underside. Three figures in snow gear and night-vision goggles dropped down on ropes, descending slowly toward the icy tundra.

  Josie grimaced as the sub-zero winds blasted against her. She looked around and saw Malik and Vincent—Ox and Monkey—following on their own ropes, just above her. But someone was missing.

  “Dog!” she called back up toward the plane. “Shake a leg!”

  Her words were almost lost in the roaring wind, but she knew he’d heard her over the cell-radio built into his Vanguard uniform. Vanguard always had the best equipment.

  The ground was coming up fast, but still no sign of Dog. Josie turned and yelled upward. “Dog? Nicky?”

  “He’s useless,” Vincent’s voice said over the radio. “You shoulda put him on a leash.” His headgear covered his face, but Josie knew he was smirking underneath.

  The wind blew Vincent’s rope toward Josie, almost knocking them into each other. “Maybe you need a leash,” she snapped, smacking him away. “Dog! Now, maybe?”

  A roar filled the air, audible even over the deafening wind. Dog’s howling figure leapt out of the plane, wearing only a combat vest and pants over his thick fur. Unlike the others, he wasn’t fastened to a rope. He seemed to stop right next to her for a moment, and then plummeted down past them in free fall.

  Josie grimaced, watching as Dog’s figure disappeared in the storm. She couldn’t even see the ground through the driving ice and snow. She’d heard that cats always landed on their feet, but she wasn’t sure about dogs. Or Zodiac-powered superhumans.

  “Ox,” she said. “Can you make out the ground formations? Are we over their headquarters?”

  Malik, the Zodiac agent known as Ox, squinted at a device on his wrist. “Storm’s scrambling the instruments,” he replied, his voice calm and steady as always. “I know we’re close—the Zodiac energy is still registering. But it’s hard to lock it down in this mess.”

  “Don’t trip,” Vincent said. “With our powers, we’ll have those kids wrapped up and delivered to Maxwell before dessert. Which you promised me, remember. For some reason I’ve developed a weird craving for banana sundaes.”

  Josie sighed. She’d worked for the Vanguard company for many years, and seen action in five different countries. Along the way she’d met Malik, and they’d carried out a few combat ops together. He was a loyal soldier, reliable, and easy to get along with. She trusted him, as much as she trusted anyone.

  Vincent, on the other hand—Monkey—was a notorious screw-up. In the past, Josie had been sent in to extract him from more than one difficult situation. And Nicky/Dog wasn’t turning out to be much better. Josie wondered if they’d ever see him again.

  Josie spoke into the radio, pitching her voice low to sound tough. “Zodiac powers don’t make you a good soldier,” she said. “Concentrate on the mission at hand.”

  “How ’bout we concentrate on the ground?” Vincent replied, pointing down. “’Cause I think I see it.”

  Josie looked down to see a sheet of ice rising up to meet them. She swung forward on her rope, let go, and rolled her body up into a ball. She landed on her hands first, galloping forward like her namesake to slow her momentum. An ethereal horse-shape appeared briefly around her, whinnying into the air, then faded as she came to a stop.

  Ice pellets rained down on her exposed cheeks. With a shock, she realized she barely felt them. This power really has changed me, she thought. Once we’ve collected the rest of the Zodiac-powered kids, Maxwell will be unstoppable.

  For some reason, the thought made her uneasy.

  Malik landed beside her. He stumbled once, then quickly regained his footing. Vincent tumbled down next, hands over feet over hands, showing off his newfound Monkey abilities. “Look at me!” he said. “Hey, guys, look at this!”

  Josie felt a headache coming on. She’d already lost one team member and felt like murdering another one. And the mission had barely started.

  “Okay,” she said. “You all know the drill: it’s a snatch-and-grab. Get into their headquarters, nab all six Zodiacs, and get out as fast as you can. No distractions, no secondary objectives.

  “The only one you need to worry about is Jasmine. She’s got the Dragon power, and she’s had Vanguard training, too. Maxwell has a plan to deal with her, but we can’t rely on that. We’ve got to take her out fast.”

  “There’s civilians in there,” Malik said. “What if they get in the way?”

  “Don’t engage if you don’t have to, but the mission comes first,” Josie replied. “This should be a milk run, people. Intel says their powers are weaker than ours, and we’re trained combat veterans. They’re just kids.”

  Vincent looked around. “What about Nicky? He’s probably splattered all over the ice somewhere—”

  A familiar roar rose up over the storm. Josie turned in alarm, whipping out her gun, just as Nicky leapt out from behind a rise. The Dog image rose up above him, howling along with Nicky himself.

  Josie sighed again and holstered her weapon.

  “Dude,” Monkey said. “You’re alive!”

  Nicky landed, light as air, on all fours. Then he straightened up and growled low, scrunching up his features. As Josie watched, his Dog form faded, and the fur receded from his face and body.

  “Man, it’s cold out here,” he said. “Especially with
out my fur on!”

  Josie marched up to him and slapped him hard, across the face. Nicky yipped in surprise.

  “You went off-mission,” Josie said. “Do that under my command again, and your next assignment will be chasing cars on the freeway. You get me?”

  Nicky nodded.

  Malik approached, waving snow away from his eyes as he jabbed at the GPS locator on his wrist. “Still can’t find anything in this mess,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Nicky grinned. “Well, then,” he said, “it’s a good thing you’ve got a bad dog along with your good soldiers, boss. Because I know where their headquarters is.”

  Before Josie could speak, Nicky scrunched up his face again. Fur started to grow back, all along his body, and Zodiac energy surrounded him. He dropped down to all fours and ran around in a circle.

  Vincent laughed. “What’s he doing?”

  Nicky—Dog—reared up on two legs again and sniffed the air. The storm was still raging; Josie couldn’t see ten feet away. Nicky turned slowly in place, then stopped, becoming completely still. He reached up a furry hand and pointed off in the distance.

  “Rrrrrrr!” he growled. Then he took off at a run.

  Josie grimaced. She’d been waiting for years to command a Vanguard field team. But this was not the kind of team she’d imagined.

  She shrugged and pointed after Nicky. “Let’s go,” she said, and set off into the storm.

  “AND HERE WE ARE,” Jasmine said. “The heart of our little operation: the War Room.”

  Steven gazed around the room. It was wide but low, with a few computers clustered in the center. Wires hung from the ceiling, and a group of old-fashioned desks sat together in one corner. A giant LCD screen covered one wall.

  There were plenty of chairs, but only one was occupied—by Dafari, the man Steven had met in the lab. Carlos stood over Dafari’s shoulder, pointing at a screen, talking in a low voice.

  “Steven!” a voice called. He looked across the room at the old desks just in time to see a figure wink out of existence. A split second later, Kim reappeared at his side with a quiet poof. Steven jumped.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to freak you out. Isn’t this place awesome?”

  Jasmine crossed over to Carlos and pointed at a tablet he held in his hand. As he touched the tablet, large type appeared on the big wall screen:

  Z.A.P.P.E.R.S.

  Zodiac

  Action

  Preparation &

  Protection

  Emergency

  Response

  Squad

  Jasmine frowned. “Another name for the group?”

  “That’s, uh, sorry.” Carlos tapped the tablet frantically. “I didn’t want anyone to see that yet.”

  “I can see why.”

  The type faded—and then the wallscreen sparked and died. A puff of smoke rose up from it.

  Jasmine grimaced. “We really do need some new toys.”

  Carlos shook his head and walked over to the screen. He yanked out a wire, sending another spark flaring up into the air. Steven, Kim, and Jasmine all flinched.

  “Please don’t burn down the War Room,” Jasmine said.

  But Carlos held up a second sparking wire, and smiled. He touched the wires together, and the screen flickered back to life.

  It took Steven a moment to figure out the image on the screen. It was a long shot of a blinding ice storm, snow and wind whipping wildly all around.

  “Nasty weather outside,” Jasmine said. “We got home just in time.”

  “I’m not worried about the storm,” Carlos said, manipulating the display on his tablet. On the big screen, the image zoomed in to show the headquarters exterior, its outline barely visible through the wind and ice. From the top, the place looked like a low, flat hill.

  “Tough to get readings,” Carlos continued.

  “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.” Jasmine smiled. “Not just the Z.A.P.P.E.R.S.”

  Carlos shot her a quick glare and kept working.

  Liam and Roxanne filed into the room. “So this is where y’make the doughnuts,” Liam said.

  Duane—Pig—stopped short in the doorway, his eyes wide. He walked up to the wall screen and touched the cables leading out of it.

  “Duane,” Carlos said. “Careful with your power, please? This system is barely hanging together as it is.”

  Duane nodded absently. He started moving around the room, his fingers tracing the path of the wiring.

  “There,” Jasmine said, pointing at the tablet. “Those are the energy signatures?”

  Carlos nodded and touched the tablet again. Up on the wallscreen, a cluster of icons shaped like the letter “Z” appeared on one side of the headquarters. The icons wavered and wobbled. Two of them winked out for a moment, then reappeared.

  “Four Zodiac-powered agents,” Carlos said. “Maybe five. But I can’t get a precise fix on them in this storm.”

  “That’s what they counted on, aye?” said Liam. “My Uncle Johnny used to wait till his enemies were really drunk, then he’d sneak up and head-butt ’em. They couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way.”

  “What do you do when this kind of stuff happens?” Steven asked. “Put the headquarters on alert, or something?”

  A column of three small windows appeared down the side of the big wall screen. Two of the new images showed pairs of armed guards in heavy winter coats stationed at the outer walls of the complex. The third showed another group of guards being buffeted by wind on the flat, icy roof. Wind swirled the snow all around, hiding the guards from view and then revealing them again.

  “All personnel are on guard duty, inside and out of the complex,” Carlos said. “That’s why the War Room is on a skeleton staff. But these winds are so strong, I don’t know if our people would even see an enemy coming.”

  Steven thought he recognized Mags, the mechanic, doing guard duty on the roof. But it was hard to tell through the thick coats, in the driving storm.

  Duane stood at the far side of the room. “What’s on the other side of this wall?” he asked.

  “The hangar bay,” Carlos said. “It stretches up two floors, to the roof. It’s where we store copters and planes.”

  “If we had any planes,” Jasmine added. “Listen, seeing our attackers coming is only half the problem. The other half is that our people aren’t trained to defend against a paramilitary squad of Zodiac-powered agents.”

  “Ma’am? Isn’t that why you recruited us…”

  Jasmine, Carlos, and Steven all turned at the sound of Kim’s voice. But she was gone. Steven heard a soft poof, and turned back again to see her reappear in front of the wallscreen.

  “…to use our Zodiac powers?” Kim finished.

  Duane and Liam quickly joined her. Roxanne followed, eyeing Jasmine carefully. When they were all assembled, Steven walked over to stand in front of them, facing Carlos and Jasmine.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Jasmine stared at them for a long moment. The Dragon energy began to take shape around her, fierce jaws and scales forming just above her head. She rose a few inches off the floor.

  “No,” she said. “You’re not ready.”

  Roxanne threw up her hands. Steven swore he heard her make a clucking sound.

  Steven felt the energy surge inside him. Power rippled across his skin, flaring up to become a raging Tiger. He turned toward Jasmine and growled.

  Jasmine winced. Her Dragon form flickered once, and almost vanished. Jasmine gritted her teeth and the Dragon flared back to life, its jaws opening in a silent screech.

  They stared at each other for a long moment. Jasmine had told him several times that the Dragon was the most powerful sign of all. The Tiger was strong and fast, but the Dragon was in a whole other league.

  Yet something was different now. Some instinct told Steven that Jasmine wasn’t as unbeatable as she’d seemed before. The Tiger roared within him, aching to challenge her.

  Th
is is how animals act, he realized. When the world grows dangerous around them, when predators wait just beyond the cave entrance.

  Or when they’re competing to rule the pack.

  Jasmine seemed to soften. She held up her hands in a placating gesture, and allowed the Dragon energy to softly fade.

  “They’re not ready, I mean,” she said. “The recruits. And Maxwell’s agents are far stronger.”

  Carlos walked up, watching Jasmine with worried eyes. “That was part of Maxwell’s plan,” he said. “He deliberately took the most powerful Zodiac powers first, in case something went wrong.”

  Steven clenched his fists. “I’m as powerful as any of them,” he said. The Tiger energy still flared all around him, begging for release.

  “I know,” Jasmine said. “That’s why we…you and I…are going to be the main line of defense.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” Liam said. “I didn’t come here to hide meself away. I’ve been a fighter all my life.”

  “I never backed away from a battle either,” Roxanne said, holding an imaginary microphone in her hand. “This is just powers instead of mics.”

  “Why are we here,” Kim added, “if not to help?”

  “You’re here so we can keep you safe!” Jasmine exclaimed.

  “Jaz,” Carlos said sharply. He pointed at the wallscreen.

  Two of the video feeds showing guards had gone blank. As the group watched, the third one winked off, changing to static.

  Roxanne stepped up between Jasmine and Steven. “Whatever the plan is, now might be the time.”

  “The plan is for Steven to take you four down to the reinforced sub-basement bunker,” Jasmine said. “Then get back up here, alone, as fast as he can.”

  “And in the meantime?” Steven replied. “You’ll take on Maxwell’s whole attack team by yourself?”

  Jasmine rose up into the air. The Dragon shape appeared above her, glowing and shimmering with energy.

  “I’m the Dragon,” she said. “Remember?”

  This time, Steven could clearly see the strain on her face. Jasmine was putting on a show, displaying her power dramatically for the others. But that power was far weaker than it had been before.