Balance of Power

by Stan Lee

  “‘Only Maxwell can leash the Dragon. But the Dragon cannot be leashed.’” Jasmine stared at the wheel. “It’s tearing him apart.”

  The Dragon flies free

  The Dragon burns

  “There’s only one way to cure him.” Jasmine stared at the wheel. “We’ve got to undo Maxwell’s conditioning. We have to break the cycle.”

  “Carlos, buddy!” Steven cried. “We can help you. We can get you out of this.” He turned to Jasmine and whispered: “Can we get him out of this?”

  “We have to.” Her voice was low, intense. “I love him.”

  “Look!”

  Steven pointed at the wheel. Behind the blurry images, barely visible, were the familiar contours of Carlos’s face. They looked like pencil etchings, like crude sketches on a giant tablet.

  The Dragon burns

  The Dragon rages

  Carlos’s features grew sharper: his dark eyes, thin lips, the narrow mustache and goatee framing his mouth. The thin glasses he always wore when he worked.

  Steven frowned. “He has glasses? In here?”

  “It’s his image of himself.” Jasmine waved Steven’s question away. “Just like Mince. She was a little girl inside her mindscape.”

  “I bet that was cheery.”

  Jasmine gave him a weird look. “She wasn’t always bad.”

  Its breath boils the seas

  Its touch scars the land

  “Carlos, listen to me,” Jasmine pleaded. She moved closer, staring into Carlos’s eyes. “This isn’t your fault—you’re not to blame. Maxwell did this to you.”

  Carlos’s eyes flickered. The wheel had almost completely transformed into a huge version of his face. He blinked down at Jasmine, struggling to focus.

  The Dragon roars

  The Dragon rages

  “We can cure you,” she continued. “Let us take you out of here.”

  Carlos blinked again, his eyes huge behind the narrow eyeglasses. He looked around, a hint of panic in those eyes—and all at once, Steven felt it, too, like bile rising in his throat.

  Where’s that coming from? he wondered. Is Carlos’s mental state infecting me? We’re inside his mind, after all. Am I panicking because he’s panicking?

  No, he realized, it’s the Tiger. Its instincts are crying out—prodding me, urging me to act. But what does it want me to do?

  The Dragon slays friends

  It murders kinsmen

  It kills the meek and the bold

  Carlos’s face twisted in pain. He opened his mouth in a silent scream of agony.

  The cycle, Steven thought, the words of the Tigers echoing in his brain. The cycle—

  It slays all

  Loved and hated

  Good and wicked alike

  “Jasmine,” Steven warned. He took a step back, driven by some unconscious instinct.

  Carlos’s eyes stared wide now, in mad terror. He opened his mouth.

  The Dragon flies free

  Where it passes no life remains

  It burns it sears it slays

  It scars kills boils murders rages

  “Jasmine!”

  Steven reached out to pull her away. She shook him off, staring straight ahead. Carlos’s lips moved desperately, frantically….

  AND IT’S MY FAULT

  Carlos screamed. His face exploded; the darkness shattered. As Steven flew backward, he reached out for Jasmine. He felt her hand clasp his, gripping him tight in the raging wind of the mindscape. They tumbled through time, through space, for a time beyond time, a distance that was no distance at all.

  They landed on sand, hot and flat. The impact jarred Steven’s back; he grunted in pain. When he looked up, the rays of the sun blinded him. He shielded his eyes and waited for his vision to return.

  By the time he stood up, Jasmine was already staring at the hole in the ground.

  The desert stretched all the way to the horizon. No clouds offered shade, no mountains or cities broke up the simplicity of the landscape. Just sand, sky, and the impossibly bright sun above.

  And the hole. Four, maybe four and a half kilometers wide, like a crater in the sand. Char marks pocked its uneven edges, as if it had been burned into the landscape by some giant torch.

  Jasmine walked up to the edge and peered down. “Careful,” Steven called, running to join her.

  “Look,” she said, pointing down.

  He stopped at the edge, fighting off a sense of vertigo as he stared down into the hole. At the bottom, in a pile of dark ash, lay fragments of buildings—stones and stairs and broken columns. A minaret that might have belonged to an ancient mosque.

  Bones, too. Stripped of flesh, bleached by the sun. They no longer seemed to belong to any living thing.

  “What—” Steven began. “What is this?”

  “I know,” Jasmine whispered, staring into the abyss.

  “It’s not from my mind.” He looked sharply at her. “Is it a memory of yours?”

  “No.”

  “Then it must belong to Carlos.”

  A strange movement caught his eye. Down in the hole, something shifted. A small rustling among the bones and wreckage.

  “What is it?” he asked again. “What is this place?”

  “It’s Lystria.”

  He started to reply, then stopped. Lystria, he thought. The murdered city. The place Maxwell destroyed during his rise to power. The town he leveled without mercy, just to tell the world never to mess with him. To cement his reputation.

  Steven had never been to Lystria. Neither had Jasmine. Carlos had, but he’d refused to speak of it to Steven or the other Zodiacs.

  “If…if this is Lystria…” Steven paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “Then it isn’t an accident. Carlos is trying to tell us something.”

  Far below, a small figure emerged from the pile of bones. He had dark hair, dark clothes, and ash-coated boots. He tossed aside some rubble and started to climb up the side of the pit.

  “Someone is,” Jasmine said.

  A distant stench rose from the crater, carried on the low wind. The figure clawed his way up, drawing closer. When Steven caught sight of his face, he gasped and stepped back.

  Jasmine stood her ground. When the newcomer clawed his way out of the hole, she was waiting for him.

  “Human ashes,” the man said, dusting off his pants. “They cling to a man.”

  “Maxwell,” Steven said.

  Maxwell stared at Steven for a moment, then looked over at Jasmine. A strange expression entered his eyes: part hatred, part confusion.

  Then it passed. Maxwell’s familiar, arrogant smile spread across his features.

  “This guy better be inside Carlos’s head,” Steven said, rolling his eyes. “I sure didn’t bring Maxwell in here, and I hope you didn’t, either.”

  Jasmine didn’t answer. She seemed to be studying Maxwell, as if unsure who he was.

  Maxwell raised an eyebrow at Steven. “Your banter,” he said, “is poorly timed.”

  “It usually is, yeah.”

  Maxwell strode past Jasmine, approaching Steven head-on. Steven struggled not to flinch. Maxwell’s figure seemed very solid, more real than the searing sun above or the bleached bones below. More real, even, than the dying Zodiacs on the ancient Chinese plain.

  “Carlos is correct,” Maxwell continued. “The Dragon cannot be leashed. Not by you.”

  “Jasmine was the Dragon before,” Steven said.

  “For a time.” Maxwell jerked his head back at Jasmine. “Ask her if she thinks she could control it forever.”

  Steven glanced over at Jasmine. She looked down sadly and shook her head.

  “Jasmine!” Maxwell exclaimed. “You’re growing wiser. No longer the headstrong young girl who worked for me, years ago.”

  A Tiger alarm went off inside Steven’s head. Something’s wrong, he thought. The words coming out of Maxwell’s mouth—it doesn’t sound like Carlos’s mind talking. But it’s not Jasmine, either….


  “Only I can tame the Dragon,” Maxwell said. “Only I can stop the devastation to come.”

  Jasmine crossed over to join them, motioning Steven back. “What devastation?” she asked. “What have you done?”

  Again, Maxwell smiled. He opened his mouth to reply.

  But Steven never heard the answer.

  ONE MOMENT STEVEN stood in the desert with Jasmine and Maxwell. The next, without any transition, he was sprawled awkwardly in a folding chair, facing Carlos’s hospital bed. Electrodes trailed from his temples to Carlos’s unmoving body, then across the bed to Jasmine, who sat equally still.

  He shook his head and pulled himself upright in the chair. He felt stiff, groggy; his vision was blurry. Across the medical bay, a cluster of people stood talking, but he couldn’t make out who they were.

  “Steven, mate!” someone with a familiar voice called out. “Yer alive!”

  The group started toward him, led by a short, roundish figure. Steven blinked. It can’t be, he thought. It can’t be him.

  “Liam?”

  The Irishman leaned down, smiling warmly. It was him, all right: wide cheeks, thick glasses, a mop of unruly hair. Duane and Roxanne followed him.

  “Liam,” Steven repeated. “Are you real?”

  How can he be here? Last I knew, Liam was in an Irish jail. Unless…A jolt of panic ran through him. Am I still in the mindscape? Still hallucinating people…like Maxwell?

  Liam clapped Steven on the back, hard enough to make even the Tiger wince. “That answer yer question?”

  Steven nodded. “How? What are you doing here?”

  Before Liam could answer, Dr. Snejbjerg strode up and took Steven’s head in both hands. With one quick motion, she ripped both electrodes off his temples. She snapped on a pocket flashlight and shone it in one of his eyes, then the other.

  “Um,” Steven said. “Ow?”

  “You are indeed alive,” the doctor said. “And you’re lucky to be that way. What were you thinking? Entering the mind of a comatose man?”

  Steven looked over at Carlos’s body. He seemed deep in the coma, his condition unchanged. Past him, Jasmine sat rigid and unmoving in her chair. The control box lay in her lap.

  Wait, Steven thought, his heart skipping a beat. Jasmine! Is she…?

  Dr. Snejbjerg circled around Carlos’s bed and snatched up the control box. “She’s alive, too,” she said, gesturing at Jasmine. “But whatever’s happened to her, wherever she’s gone, we can’t seem to bring her back.”

  “You brought me back,” Steven said.

  “Yes. Like so.”

  The doctor manipulated a few touch controls on the box. Jasmine stiffened briefly and murmured something, too quietly to make out. Then she went silent again.

  “The best we can surmise,” Duane said, “is that Jasmine doesn’t want to come out of Carlos’s mind. Or wherever she is.”

  “Duane, you’re the smartest guy I know,” Steven said. “Can’t you get her out?”

  “Carlos built the mind machine,” Duane said. “I can’t even find his notes.”

  Roxanne frowned at Steven. “Dude, where were you? What did you see in there?”

  Steven stood up, suddenly restless. He remembered ancient warriors; assassins on horseback; a wheel in the sky; an enormous hole, blasted into the ground. And Maxwell, as imperious and smug as ever.

  Out of all of it, only Maxwell seemed solid. The rest was like smoke, like a dream vanishing in the daylight.

  “It’s hard to explain,” he said.

  “Ah, we’ll figure it out,” Liam said, “now that we’ve got our powers back. Cheers for that, by the way.”

  Steven didn’t answer. He paced away, trying to keep hold of the fading mindscape images. Something about a mechanical Dragon…?

  “Hey, mate,” Liam called. “Think fast!”

  Steven whirled just in time to see Liam sprinting across the room, his head aimed straight at Steven’s gut. The Ram avatar rose above Liam, its horns coiled into deadly spirals. Steven’s Tiger senses kicked into gear; at the last minute, he dodged sideways. Liam slammed, laughing, into a diagnostic bed, shattering the screen on a large monitor above it.

  Duane, Roxanne, and Steven rushed to him. But as always, Liam was completely unhurt. “Bloody hell,” he said, still laughing. “I missed you guys!”

  “Literally,” Duane said.

  They helped Liam to his feet. Steven found himself smiling, too. But when they all turned to face Dr. Snejbjerg, his smile died.

  She jabbed a finger at Liam’s face. “Get. Out. Of this medical bay.”

  Liam blinked. Something behind his eyes made Steven tense up. Liam was an old pub brawler. It wouldn’t do for him to take the doctor’s admonition as a challenge.

  “It’s okay,” Steven said, stepping between them. “He’s sorry. He won’t do it again.”

  Dr. Snejbjerg glared. Roxanne started neatening the broken bed while Duane picked up pieces of the monitor screen.

  Steven ushered Liam into a corner of the room, to a large computer station. The Irishman shot the doctor a nasty look but allowed himself to be led away.

  “This place used t’be more fun,” he grumbled.

  They pulled a couple of folding chairs together. Across the room, Dr. Snejbjerg glared at Roxanne and Duane as they swept up the mess.

  “Is that how you got out of jail?” Steven asked. “Just smashed through a wall and kept running?”

  “Nah.” Liam turned away. “I had some help.”

  Something in his tone sent a warning tingle up Steven’s spine. “Who?”

  “People with clout.” Liam grimaced. “Yer not gonna like it.”

  A detail from the mindscape rose to the surface of Steven’s mind: the ancient Chinese Zodiacs. He saw, again, three rapid-fire bolts piercing the hearts of the one-time Dog, Snake, and…and Ram.

  “I don’t think anything can surprise me today,” Steven said.

  The Irishman’s gaze darted to the middle of the room. Steven looked over and saw a pair of figures walking around the broken bed, giving the cleanup efforts a wide berth.

  Wrong again, Steven thought.

  The newcomers marched up to Steven and Liam. The woman wore a business suit with a long skirt and low heels. The man’s suit was trim, dark, and fit every centimeter of his body to absolute perfection.

  Reluctantly, Steven looked up. The man’s face was rigid, his mouth turned down in a permanent frown.

  “Hello, Son,” he said.

  “Dad. Long time.” Steven swallowed. “Very long time.”

  Mrs. Lee met Steven’s eyes for a moment, then took a step back. She always defers to him, Steven thought.

  “Why are you here, Dad?” Steven felt an old anger building inside him. “Want to throw a ball around the yard? Oh, wait, no yard. Also, you never did that in your entire life.”

  Mr. Lee’s lips curled even farther down. His disappointed look, Steven thought. I sure remember that.

  “I am here—” Mr. Lee stopped, corrected himself. “We are here because of the Dragon.”

  Roxanne and Duane approached, watching the confrontation nervously. Liam shot Steven a concerned look.

  “Well?” Steven asked.

  “Not here,” Mrs. Lee said. “Outside.”

  “Sometimes,” Liam said, “I forget this place is in bloody Greenland.”

  Steven stood huddled with Liam, Roxanne, and Duane, a hundred meters from the ice wall that concealed the exterior of Zodiac headquarters. He pulled his coat tighter, shivering. Half a meter of snow lay on the ground, stretching all the way to the mountains in the distance. The temperature was well below freezing; even the glaring sun didn’t seem to warm the air very much.

  A few meters away, Steven’s parents were assembling a strange machine on the snow. “You were kidding about going out in the yard,” Roxanne said, gesturing at Mr. Lee. “He understood that, right?”

  Steven shrugged. “He’s never been much for sarcasm.”

&n
bsp; “That looks like a satellite dish.” Duane peered across the snow. “They seem to be preparing to receive some sort of signal.”

  All at once, Steven had had enough. He’d survived a volcano, watched Zodiacs die, and lost Jasmine inside a hostile mindscape. Now he stood outside in the freezing cold, waiting for his parents to tell him what was going on. Just like I’ve been waiting for them all my life.

  He strode over to them. Mr. Lee ignored him; the older man just kept screwing a roundish lens unit onto the base of the machine. But his mother turned immediately.

  “Steven,” she said. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for pleasantries.”

  “Forget pleasantries. What is that thing? And why are we out here instead of inside where it’s warm?” He winced when he heard his own voice; he sounded like a whiny little boy. But he couldn’t help it. Somehow, his parents always brought out that side of him.

  “Your mother has explained this,” Mr. Lee said, not looking up. “It is a custom-built satellite unit, keyed to our private communications network.”

  “Are you using AES-256 encryption?” Duane asked. Steven turned in surprise; he hadn’t heard Duane follow him.

  “Five twelve, actually,” Mrs. Lee replied, a hint of pride in her voice. “Stronger than the U.S. government.”

  She stepped back, allowing Duane to see the device. It stood almost two meters high, bristling with lenses and projections. As Duane leaned in to look, the Pig flashed briefly above his head.

  “Mom, Dad—we know you’re important,” Steven said. “Now can we tune in to your top-secret YouTube channel and get this over with?”

  “We must wait for our private satellite to assume position overhead,” Mrs. Lee said, consulting a smart watch on her wrist. “This footage is extremely sensitive. We cannot take any chance of its being intercepted.”

  A gust of wind blew up. Steven’s teeth chattered; he turned his back on his parents. As he walked away, he heard Duane ask them, “Is the unit a secure server, as well?”