by Stan Lee
As the horror of Mince’s past washed over her, Jasmine felt a pang of guilt. I shouldn’t be watching this, she thought. These are her secrets. This is wrong; it’s private. How would I feel if someone exposed my…
Then she remembered: We’ve got to find Kim. This is a horrible thing to do—but it’s our only hope!
The image shifted and wavered. But the corridor didn’t return this time. Jasmine found herself staring at a computer screen covered top to bottom with tiny mathematical symbols. Equations, she realized. She recognized some of them from Carlos’s notes.
Mince’s emotional storm had calmed. As Jasmine’s eyes ran across the lines of numbers and symbols, a feeling of pure bliss filled the mindscape. She felt the sense of order, the sheer mathematical beauty of the world within the computer.
This was her escape, Jasmine realized. When her home life became too horrible, young Mince took refuge in numbers. In cold uncaring formulas, things that couldn’t hurt her.
No, Jasmine warned herself, don’t feel sorry for her! But…but no child should have to live through this….
A shadow fell over the computer. The air all around, the entire tenor of the mindscape, changed in an instant. Jasmine looked up and saw a fist, huge and hairy and masculine, poised to strike.
No, she thought. No, no, no. Not now.
Not the equations!
The fist slammed down, smashing the computer screen. Glass flew in all directions, tiny sharp fragments of a fragile life. Mince screamed.
Pain lanced through Jasmine—her face, her cheeks, her nose. All at once, she found herself back in the corridor. Duane was staring at her, alarmed and concerned. Why? she wondered. What’s he looking at—
Then an iron grip clamped down over her windpipe. She choked, almost gagged, and again felt a stabbing pain on her cheeks and nose.
“Don’t,” Mince said, and Duane looked down at her. “Don’t move. I’ll kill her.”
Jasmine realized what had happened. Mince had swiped a whole set of poison dart-rings across her face. The cuts weren’t deep—hardly any of the poison had actually entered her system—but they’d stung enough to shock her out of the mindscape.
Then Mince had grabbed her by the throat and twisted her around. Now Jasmine was backed up against Mince, who stood against the wall. Mince had her arm around Jasmine’s throat in a wrestler’s grip, holding her like a human shield.
The machine dangled in the air, its cables still fixed to both women’s temples. With a swipe of her free hand, Mince sliced the cables free. The machine fell to the floor with a dull crack.
Which hand? Jasmine wondered. Which hand did she hit me with?
Mince raised one hand in a dramatic motion, holding it up in front of Jasmine’s face. The rings read LIVE.
“Lucky for you I’m left-handed,” Mince hissed in her ear. “Need my DIE arm to hold you.”
Jasmine wished she could see the girl’s face, read her emotional state. But Mince’s iron grip held her tight, turned away. Jasmine pictured the scared little five-year-old, watching her father explode into violence.
“I—I saw what happened to you,” Jasmine croaked. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare pity me.”
Duane fidgeted but didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on Jasmine.
“I’ve signaled for reinforcements,” Mince continued. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. Which ought to give you time to think about the horrible thing you just did to me. Then the Vanguard soldiers will take you away, and nobody will ever remember the great, powerful pig man and dragon lady again.”
Jasmine squirmed, but it was no use. Mince was a small woman, but her madness gave her strength. Without the Dragon power, Jasmine couldn’t break her grip.
A slight rumble sounded beneath their feet. “Volcano’s acting up,” Mince said with a laugh. “Believe me, this is only the beginning.”
The air seemed hotter now, the walls narrower. Roxanne still lay unconscious. Duane looked at Jasmine, his eyes pleading for guidance.
But Jasmine was out of plans, out of power, and out of ideas. There was nothing to do but struggle for breath, deep in the heart of the volcano, and wait for the end.
STEVEN LEE RAN along the winding passage. The tunnel grew darker, narrower, steeper; he found himself skidding down a rocky incline. The air tasted thick and stale.
The voices in his head had become quieter. But their distant chant was like a drumbeat: Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
The passageway leveled out slightly. He flipped the HUDset down over his eyes, hoping to use it to guide his way. The schematic appeared, a scaffold of jagged green lines. The tunnel continued for at least half a kilometer, winding its way downhill.
Then he noticed the battery level: 22 percent. At that rate, the HUDset would lose power within minutes; better to save it for an emergency. He switched it off and stashed the HUDset in his pack.
As his eyes struggled to adjust in the dark tunnel, the old Tiger appeared before him again. “Turn back,” the man said. “There’s still time.”
“I can’t,” Steven replied.
The return of the visions meant something, he knew. In the past, they’d appeared only in connection with his Zodiac power—and usually when Steven was at a high altitude, in an airplane. There was a reason for that, something to do with the electromagnetic field of the earth. Duane had tried to explain it to him, but Steven couldn’t follow the science.
This vision, however, seemed to be warning him away from the source of his power. And it had come to him in the farthest place possible from an airplane: in a volcanic cavern deep beneath the surface of the earth.
As he felt his way along the rocky walls, Steven remembered something else Duane had said—earlier that day in the premission briefing. The volcano, Mount Merapi, featured prominently in a variety of different regional mythologies. Some locals told a story about humans being destroyed carelessly by gods who had decided to move the mountain. But others believed something else: that the spirits of the people’s ancestors actually lived in the mountain, guarding and protecting it.
Is that what’s happening here? he wondered. The Tigers…they’re like my ancestors, in a way. Are they trying to protect me? Or are they guarding something from me?
He cried out in pain as his head struck something. He shook off the vision and turned, squinting along the tunnel. He’d run straight into a stalactite hanging from the ceiling, which was less than half a meter above his head now. Angry, he punched the stalactite and howled again as pain stabbed through his hand.
Then he noticed the light.
He whirled around. A perfectly round metal plate filled the passageway dead ahead, blocking his way. It measured at least two meters in diameter, and it was glowing.
When Steven reached out for it, the voices surged again: Don’t. Don’t.
“Shut up,” he said. He touched the cool metal.
The plate flashed bright, blinding him momentarily. When his vision cleared, a familiar face was glaring out at him—a cruel visage with short-cropped military-style hair and a square jaw.
Maxwell.
“Steven Lee,” Maxwell said. “The one-time Tiger.”
The voice sent chills through Steven. Maxwell had held him captive in the past, drained Steven’s powers, even tortured his friends. But I can’t let him see me sweat. Got to stay cool!
“Maxy,” he said. “You look good. Been lifting?”
“Do not enter this chamber,” Maxwell warned. “It will be your last act.”
Steven studied the edges of the metal plate. They were set right into the rock, sealed with some unseen fixative. “You on the other side of this, Maxy?”
“Do you think you can best me in battle?” Maxwell asked. “I am the Dragon, most powerful sign of the Zodiac. You have no power; you are just a boy. I will destroy you.”
Steven paused, raising a hand to his chin. Something was wrong. Maxwell’s answers were coming a little too fast, as if he wasn’t
even pausing to think. And his image looked a bit too perfect, a little younger than usual. Hadn’t there been more wrinkles on his forehead before?
“I am the Dragon,” Maxwell repeated.
Let’s try something, Steven thought.
“I know who you are…mate,” he said, deliberately putting on an Irish accent. “But you got me wrong. I’m not Steven Lee.”
Maxwell blinked. “What?”
“The name’s Liam,” Steven continued. “I’m not the Tiger, uh, mate. You can call me Ram.”
“Liam MacNeil,” Maxwell said, with no pause at all. “The one-time Ram. I am the Dragon, most powerful sign of the Zodiac.”
Steven rolled his eyes. Liam was the Zodiac’s Ram, one of the key members of the team. A few weeks before, the Irish government had learned his secret: when he was younger, Liam had deserted from the army. He could have run away again, but he’d decided to turn himself in and pay for his youthful indiscretion. Now, as far as Steven knew, Liam was sitting in a jail in Dublin. He certainly wasn’t talking to a plate inside an Indonesian volcano.
But Maxwell—or whatever Steven was talking to—didn’t know that.
Steven turned away, thinking. In the light from the plate, the stalactite caught his eye.
“You have no power,” the Maxwell image continued. “You are just a man. I will destroy you.”
“Maxwell,” Steven muttered, reaching out to grab the stalactite with both hands, “the great and powerful.” He pulled and twisted, the rocky protrusion loosening in his grip.
“Do not attempt to enter this chamber. It will be your last act.”
“You know something—uhhh—Maxwell?”
“Do not—”
“I’m tired of people telling me what not to do.”
With a crack, the stalactite snapped free from the ceiling. Steven whipped it around and stabbed it into the plate. Electricity flashed out, knocking him away. The Maxwell image didn’t even look surprised; it just blinked again, flared bright, and winked off.
Steven staggered back, stunned. When he looked again, the circular plate had swung slightly inward on a hinge, revealing a hidden room on the other side. He pushed the heavy, smoking door open farther. A damaged server computer hung on its back, whirring loudly.
“Nice try, Maxwell,” Steven said, smirking at the computer. “But this boy has been playing multiplayer games all his life. I know a bot when I’m talking to one.”
His smirk faded quickly. In the end, the preprogrammed facsimile only reinforced the question that had been nagging at him all along: Where is Maxwell, really? Where’s the Dragon?
And are they still the same person?
He edged his way inside, studying the room. It was about the size of a large den, dimly lit by recessed lamps, with a higher ceiling than the passage outside. No people, no furniture—just a gigantic pile of relics in the center of the room.
Steven knelt down to examine the objects. They were all artifacts, souvenirs of Maxwell’s military exploits. An ancient Mesopotamian spear, a nineteenth-century Colt revolver. Steven recognized a Roman shield salvaged from the wreckage of Maxwell’s former Australian headquarters.
That base had been filled with treasures stolen from around the world. Now they lay discarded, like a pile of trash that nobody had bothered to take out.
He studied a large wooden wheel—probably from some World War–era cannon. He picked up the revolver and tossed it aside.
Again, the Tigers rumbled in his mind: Don’t do it.
“I have to.” He dug deeper into the pile, uncovering the headpiece from an Egyptian sarcophagus.
It will be your doom.
He blocked out the voices. He kept digging, lifting and then discarding one object after another. A teletype keyboard. A Chinese crossbow. A carved bust resembling the head sculptures on Easter Island, but much smaller.
Don’t.
He felt compelled, gripped by some force greater than himself. As he dug farther down into the pile, the artifacts became almost exclusively Chinese in origin. A fighting staff. A thin gong with no arrows. A weapon with a fanned blade…a yue, his grandfather had called it.
“Ow,” Steven said.
He shook his hand in pain. Near the bottom of the pile lay a thin qiang, or spear, another ancient Chinese weapon. He’d pricked his finger on it. A drop of blood glistened on its jagged blade.
On the floor in the exact center of the room, a small brown sphere caught his eye. As he reached down for it, the voices in his head grew louder: Don’t. DON’T.
His hand closed over warm bronze. “The jiānyù,” he whispered.
No, the Tigers said. Do not seek out the power. It will be your doom.
Ignoring them, he raised the sphere above his head. It pulsed and shimmered in the dim light. It seemed to speak directly to the Tiger, the immortal spirit still buried somewhere inside him.
The voices reached a crescendo: SEE.
The room seemed to dissolve into a haze of light. Steven shrank away, struggling to banish the vision. But it was the most powerful, most overwhelming vision he’d ever experienced.
A droplet of water appeared in the light. It hovered in the air, then fell to the floor. A second droplet followed, and then a third.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The light softened, revealing a small group. Roxanne, her eyes wide with fear. Duane, tapping furiously on a small tablet. Liam, his uniform in shreds. Kim, the missing Rabbit, casting anxious glances behind her.
They stood in a circle, watching the droplets fall from the sky. Their eyes moved in unison, tracking the motion of the water as if it were a one-way vertical table tennis match. They seemed fearful, mesmerized, resigned to some terrible fate.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
As the last droplet fell, Jasmine appeared. She looked tired, guilty, as if she’d been carrying around some horrible secret. She lifted an arm and pointed upward.
The water had vanished. In its place, a gigantic Dragon claw descended from the sky, talons reaching down to menace the Zodiacs. They looked up, defiant but terrified. Powerless.
I’ll save you, Steven thought, the pulsing jiānyù still clasped in his hand. I’ll get all our powers back. That’s why I came here!
No, the Tigers said. Look.
Steven whirled around—and saw another Dragon claw reaching down from the sky. Its talons seemed even sharper, more severely hooked than the other’s. Beneath it, two small figures cowered in fear, raising their arms to shield their vulnerable bodies.
“Mom,” Steven whispered. “And Dad.”
His father, dressed as always in a freshly pressed business suit, shouted up at the unseen Dragon. In response, its claw swiped through the air, grazing his mother’s cheek. She didn’t cry out, but she raised a hand to wipe away blood.
This, the Tigers said. This is your doom.
A cry of pain. Steven turned back to see Jasmine struggling, pinned beneath the first Dragon claw. Duane lay bloody on the ground, his tablet computer shattered beside him.
A scuffling noise. Steven whirled again. His mother batted her fists helplessly against the Dragon’s claw. Mr. Lee hunched down beside her, clutching at a fresh wound in his stomach.
Steven wanted to help them—wanted to help all of them. But he was frozen, rooted to the spot. All he could do was watch.
The face of the old Tiger appeared again, filling Steven’s view. When the old man spoke, the voices of the other Tigers vibrated behind him, echoing forward through the ages.
“If you reclaim your powers,” the Tigers said, “you will be forced to make this choice: the Zodiac or a normal life. Your friends, your teammates, your duty—or your family, the people who gave you life.”
“I can’t,” Steven said. “I can’t make that choice.”
“You must. We did—all of us, every Tiger through history. We all lived through the cycle, were all tested. And all of us failed.”
Steven felt cold inside. The warning was cryptic, its de
tails shrouded in mystery. But behind it, he knew, was the truth. The end of the story, the dark secret behind the Zodiac powers.
“The result,” the Tigers chanted, “is always the same.”
The old man’s face faded away. In its place, the Dragon filled the sky, coiled and menacing. Its fiery breath burst forth, a song of triumph over its enemies. The Zodiacs lay below: Roxanne, Duane, Kim—broken, slashed to bits. Only Liam still stood, defiant atop his friends’ bodies. As he lowered his head for a final Ram charge, the Dragon swiped its claw at him, almost casually. He toppled and fell.
Steven’s mother and father lay together, silent and unmoving, hands clasped in death.
Oblivion.
The white haze began to rise again. The Lees receded into the distance; the Zodiacs seemed to melt away. Even the Dragon became blurry, indistinct.
None among us may escape this destiny, the Tigers continued. When our time was done, our enemies vanquished, we found that all trace of our powers was erased from the world. Even the memories…of ourselves, of the friends we cherished in love and in battle…all this was lost.
The whole picture dissolved into light. Water began to trickle down again, just as before. Drip. Drip. Drip.
And just as it was for us, so it will be for you…
An inhuman roar rose. The crimson breath of the Dragon burned through the droplets, obliterating them.
…if you reclaim your powers.
All at once, the vision was gone. Steven sat on the floor of the cavern, surrounded by a thousand scattered relics. The room was cold.
The jiānyù pulsed in his hand. He could feel its power, the tremendous energies held captive within it. The fierce Horse, the unstoppable Ram. The Rooster with its piercing cry, the ever-searching Pig. Dog and Rabbit, Snake and Ox and Monkey and…
As he watched, mesmerized, the sphere’s surface began to flow and melt in his grip. Its shape became elongated and cylindrical, like a sausage. One end morphed into a thick whipping tail; the other became a tufted head with sharp bronze fangs.
The Tiger.
The others, the ancient Tigers, had receded. But Steven could still hear their warning in his mind.