by Stan Lee
“Jasmine’s been saying that for weeks,” Roxanne replied. “That the Dragon’s all-powerful now, that Maxwell’s not there anymore. I’m not sure I understand how that could happen.”
“Aye,” Liam agreed. “My power never feels like it’s gonna take me over. It just lets me crash through walls without crackin’ open my skull.”
“Your power isn’t the Dragon,” Steven said. “I’ve touched the Dragon, felt its power. It feels like…like we’re all flickering matches and it’s the whole blazing sun.”
“If the Dragon took over Maxwell, then where did Maxwell go?” Kim asked. “His, whatever, consciousness?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nowhere.” Steven paused. “Maxwell was a maniac and a murderer, but at least he was human. The Dragon doesn’t care about human life at all.”
“Seems to me the important thing is the Dragon’s plan.” Liam stood up and started pacing. “Why attack a fishing town in Alaska? And what was all that crazy rock machinery it had set up inside yer Indonesian volcano? Is it just crazy, or does it have some big endgame?”
“The first attack was way up north.” Steven pictured a world map. “Maybe it’s starting up there and planning to work its way down? Something to do with the earth’s magnetic poles?”
“Or the what? Ley lines? I don’t know what I’m bloody talking about.” Liam laughed. “We really need Duane.”
“The Dragon kept changing,” Steven said, “in the video my folks brought. I recognized the first three versions—but what was that last one? It looked like a walrus. Or a manatee, maybe—”
“It’s called the Az-I-Wu-Gum-Ki-Mukh-’Ti.”
They all turned to stare at Roxanne.
“Azziewhatnow?” Steven asked.
“Az-I-Wu-Gum-Ki-Mukh-’Ti,” she repeated. “An Inuit myth. Their very own version of a dragon.”
Liam blinked. “You part Inuit or something, Rox?”
She smirked and held up her phone. An artist’s rendition of the Inuit dragon snarled out at them: long fangs and a walrus head, with a dog’s body and a large fin at the back.
“Google, dude,” Roxanne said. “It’s your friend.”
“The Dragon was menacing a local man,” Steven said, “when it changed.”
“Your mom said it—what was it?—exists in all manifestations now. Guess it adapts to fit the mythology, the fears, of whoever it’s facing.”
Steven nodded. He remembered his vision, back in the volcano: the terrible image of the Dragon filling the sky, menacing everyone and everything he loved.
“Steven?” Kim seemed hesitant. “I know you don’t like to talk about your parents. But they did work with Maxwell for a while.”
“Yeah,” Roxanne said. “What did they do? Build Zodiac equipment for him?”
“You’re saying they might know something they’re not telling us.” He grimaced. “Yeah, maybe. Dad’s always got schemes inside his schemes.”
“Sure, but they came to us,” Liam said. “And yer mom helped us against Maxwell before, didn’t she?”
“So did Rat. You trust him?” Steven shook his head. “You don’t know them.”
They all turned to him again, staring in concern. This time they didn’t look away.
“Mate,” Liam said softly. “What’s wrong?”
Steven drew in a deep breath.
“Okay,” he said.
He told them about the visions. The army of ancient Tigers whose voices rose to a deafening scream in that chamber beneath the mountain. He described the giant claws reaching down to slice his team to ribbons. He described the horrific sight of his parents, hands clasped as the Dragon swooped down to crush them with its deadly talons.
He talked about the Chinese plain, the team of past-era Zodiacs. His voice quavered as he described the ancient warrior whose unerring crossbow bolts had ended the Zodiacs’ lives. He told them about patchy-furred Dog, the big female Ram, the old injured Snake. He told them about Rat, the tall weathered man who had loved a Tiger long gone from the earth.
And last, he told them about the choice. The inescapable fate, the doom foretold by the Tigers who had lived before him:
“‘The Zodiac,’ they said, ‘or a normal life. Your friends, your teammates, your duty—or your family, the people who gave you life.’”
His three teammates took in every word. Listening, seeking, struggling to help.
“They said they’d all faced the choice,” Steven continued, “and every one of ’em had failed. And when they were done, nothing remained of the Zodiacs.”
“So…” Roxanne began, “are you worried about failing? As a leader, I mean?”
“No. Well, yeah, but it’s more than that.” He frowned, struggling to sort his thoughts. “I just have a bad feeling that some sort of…sacrifice is coming.”
Kim touched his arm. Roxanne squinted, thinking. Liam frowned.
“Sounds a little vague,” Liam said.
“You didn’t see the vision,” Steven replied.
“No, I didn’t. And until I do, I don’t believe it. All we’ve got is the word of a bunch of ghosts in yer head.”
“Nothing’s set in stone, Steven,” Roxanne said. “If there’s a choice, you’ll face it when you get there.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Kim said quietly.
Steven nodded and reached for them. They scooted their chairs forward, stretching out for an awkward group hug at arm’s length.
“Thank you,” Steven said. He felt tears forming in his eyes. “Man, I’ve missed you g—”
“THE RING OF FIRE!”
Duane burst through the door, waving a tablet around. Steven and the others pulled apart slightly. They stared up at Duane, baffled, their arms still around each other’s shoulders.
Duane paced around the chairs, holding up the tablet. “You know,” he said impatiently, “volcanoes!”
“Mate,” Liam said, “yer gonna have to dumb it down for us.”
“Oh.” Duane looked at the tablet. “Well. It was a matter of comparing seismic readings to soil samples. Then we plotted the results against—” He stopped in his tracks.
“Duane?” Steven asked. “What is it?”
Duane approached the group, the tablet hanging loose in his fingers. A sad expression came over his face.
“Did I miss the hugging?” he asked.
“THE PROBLEM we couldn’t solve,” Duane said, “was what had happened to the Dragon energy. Only the faintest traces were showing up on our scanners.”
Steven frowned. “I thought Maxwell knew how to block our scans.”
He leaned forward over a strategy table in the middle of the war room. Duane and Dafari stood at the front of the room before the large wall screen, which showed an image of the Dragon superimposed over Maxwell’s face.
The war room had been refitted and expanded in recent months, with new computers and additional planning tables installed. Roxanne, Liam, and Kim were clustered with Steven. From another table, the ex-Vanguard Zodiacs watched the presentation warily. An assortment of nonpowered staff members stood farther back, around the computer stations.
Dafari nodded a bit impatiently. “That is correct. But the Dragon radiates much more energy than any of the other Zodiac signs—orders of magnitude more. Even Maxwell should not have been able to shield it from us completely.”
Mr. and Mrs. Lee entered through the side door and stood stiffly against the wall. Mr. Lee shot a glance at Steven, then turned his attention to the big screen.
“So we broadened our search,” Duane said. “Dafari contacted several Arctic research stations, hoping they might be of help. They provided wave readings that confirmed the Dragon’s presence during the attack on Akutan Island. But as soon as that was over, the energy signature vanished.”
“Then Duane had what you call a brainstorm,” Dafari said. “Quite a brilliant one, actually.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Oh, it was well deserved.”
“Knock
it off, you two,” Roxanne said, rolling her eyes. “Can we get to the point?”
Duane turned to the screen and pressed a button on a remote control. The Dragon image faded, replaced by a video of a raging erupting volcano.
“I kept thinking of our experience inside Mount Merapi,” Duane said. “Several of the readings didn’t add up: timing of seismic waves, pattern of surface deformation, the levels of magmatic gas in the soil. The eruption was clearly unnatural.”
“We know that,” Steven said. “Beta told us. Mince triggered an artificial eruption.”
“But how?” Dafari asked. “And why?”
“I needed more data,” Duane said. “So I reached out to volcano observatories in Hawaii and Catania. It took us a frustratingly long time to collate the information….”
Steven’s eyebrows rose. Duane’s “frustratingly long time” had been less than an hour.
“But eventually we found this.”
Duane clicked the remote. The screen image changed to a simple map of the world, with Europe and Asia on the left and the Americas on the right. A thick line curved up and around the Pacific Ocean, starting to the right of Australia and swinging northwest toward China and the Philippines, reaching briefly over the islands of Malaysia and Indonesia. The line veered up the coast of Russia, swooping east to the Aleutian Islands and then turning to drop south down the North American west coast. It continued past the Panama Canal, all the way down past Peru and Chile to the tip of South America.
“The Ring,” Duane said, “of Fire.”
Mags, the group’s caretaker/mechanic, spoke up from the computer area. “I know what that is. It’s the area in the Pacific Ocean that contains most of the active volcanoes in the world.”
“Yes,” Duane said. “And it turns out that an alarming number of these volcanoes have recently shown signs of activity. The volcanology institutes have been keeping that information quiet—”
“In order to avoid panic,” Mr. Lee said.
Malik—Ox—stood up and pushed his chair noisily under the table. Everyone turned toward him.
“Are you saying that Maxwell is triggering a massive chain of volcanic eruptions?” he asked.
“Exactly,” Duane replied.
That must be hundreds of volcanoes, Steven thought, all over the world. If they all erupt at once…what would happen?
“This could lead to massive ecological disruptions, not to mention the actual fire damage from lava flows,” Duane explained. “Billions would die or fall sick from the toxic gases. The sheer quantity of ash in the atmosphere would render air travel nearly impossible. Worst-case scenario: the end of the human race.”
“I don’t buy it,” Josie said, rising to her feet. “I’ve worked for Maxwell. He doesn’t want to kill everyone in the world. What would he gain from that?”
“Not Maxwell,” Duane said, “the Dragon.”
“This again?” Nicky—Dog—snorted. “Maxwell is the Dragon. What’s the difference?”
“It’s a big difference.” Steven moved forward, turning to face the group. “Jasmine says the Dragon has completely taken over Maxwell’s body. And the Dragon isn’t human.”
“It doesn’t think the way we do,” Duane added. “We believe it wants to wipe out all life on Earth and start over.”
“Project Firebird,” Kim said.
Steven nodded. “Raining fire across the land.”
Billy, the team’s quartermaster, gestured at the world map. “This, uh, sounds incredible,” he said. “How could any entity do this? Even the Dragon? The technology required…”
“That’s where Mount Merapi comes in.” Duane turned to Steven. “Kim told me about your rescue. You had to pass through three different areas in order to reach her, correct?”
“Yeah,” Steven replied. “But they weren’t very dangerous, except maybe the last one. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“Those were not protective measures,” Duane said. “At least not primarily. They were simulations.”
“Simulations?” Steven echoed. “Of what?”
“Tectonic plates. The enormous moving rock shelves beneath the surface of the earth.”
Roxanne nodded. “I thought that was a whole lot of tech just to booby-trap an underground jail.”
Duane clicked again. On the big screen, a geological cutaway diagram appeared. It showed two flat layers of rock beneath the earth’s surface, sliding toward each other. When they came together, one sheet of rock slipped easily past the other.
“This is called a conservative boundary,” Duane explained. “Two tectonic plates passing each other without damage to either one. I assume it looks familiar.”
“The first area,” Steven said, “inside the volcano. The floor was made up of rocky tiles that moved like that.”
“Conservative boundaries are not especially harmful. They can cause earthquakes, but that’s about all. But there is another kind of tectonic plate activity…when the plates move away from each other.”
Steven nodded, remembering. “The holes.”
“And the third type: destructive boundaries. In this case, the plates collide and crash together. This can lead to deep trenches, subducted basins…and volcanic eruptions.”
Steven thought of the third area, the expanse leading to Kim’s cell. The grinding rock layers, magma bubbling up in the cracks between them.
“The Dragon,” he whispered. “It built a little model of the earth to work out the kinks. It was running tests…figuring out exactly how to manipulate the tectonic plates and trigger volcanoes.”
“And Mince was its tester in chief,” Kim said.
Steven’s head was whirling. It all made sense. Even the inside-out map of the earth above the first chamber…as if a person interacting with the “tectonic plates” were looking up at the surface.
“Another clue,” Dafari said, taking the remote from Duane, “in this video that the very gracious Mr. and Mrs. Lee provided…”
The screen lit up with a short clip from the Dragon’s assault on Akutan Island. The Dragon swooped down out of frame, fire raging from its mouth. But Dafari froze the image, zooming in to show a column of smoke rising from the mountains behind.
“That is from Akutan Peak,” he said, “one of the many newly active volcanoes along the Ring of Fire.”
The screen returned to the world map. The thick line of volcanic activity seemed to press up against the continents, like a threat to their very existence.
“Kid,” Malik said, staring at Duane. “Assuming this is all true…and I’m not convinced yet…”
“It’s true,” Duane said, a bit defensive.
“…it still doesn’t answer your first question. Why weren’t you able to detect the Dragon energy?”
“That is child’s play.”
All eyes turned to Mr. Lee. He strode to the front of the room as if he were conducting a board meeting, then whipped out a laser pointer and aimed it at the screen.
Steven rolled his eyes. Does he carry that everywhere?
The laser dot struck the map in the vicinity of New Zealand. Almost casually, Mr. Lee traced the path of the ring as it wound through the Pacific Ocean.
“Water,” he said.
“That’s, uh, correct.” Duane looked a bit embarrassed. “Most of the volcanoes are deep underwater, often kilometers below the surface. The sheer bulk of seawater was obstructing our scans.”
“I bet the Dragon planned on that, too,” Liam said.
“Once we knew what we were looking for, we attacked the data from the observatories again. We compared our Dragon energy scans against lithosphere readings, subduction, oceanic-oceanic and oceanic-continental convergence studies…”
Steven tuned out Duane for a moment. He’ll get to the point eventually.
“…until we located the center of the volcanic activity.”
The map zoomed up and in to an area near Japan. In the middle of the ocean, a red dot pulsed and burned.
“Tamu Massif
,” Duane said. “The largest volcano ever discovered.”
“Actually,” Dafari said, “there are larger.”
“On Mars.” Duane glared at him. “This is the cornerstone of the Dragon’s plan. The large eruption that will trigger smaller ones around the world.”
Kim stared at the screen, grimacing. “It looks a little harder to get to than Mount Merapi.”
“It is approximately sixteen hundred kilometers off the coast of Japan and nearly two kilometers beneath the surface. The pressure at that depth is…”
“We get the idea,” Roxanne said. “It’s nasty.”
“We’re goin’ there, aren’t we?” Liam asked.
“An expedition seems inevitable,” Duane agreed. “But I don’t believe it will be sufficient. As Billy said, even the power of the Dragon isn’t enough to pull off this level of tectonic change. Our enemy must have a huge complex of machinery somewhere, reaching deep inside the earth. All the way down to the asthenosphere.”
“Well, it’s not at Mount Merapi,” Kim said. “That’s just a pile of slag now.”
“Awright,” Liam said. “So where is it?”
“We have not been able to locate this complex,” Dafari admitted. “Not as yet.”
“It’s at Lystria,” Steven said.
Everyone turned to him.
“Lystria,” Roxanne repeated. “The city in the desert, that Maxwell destroyed. How in the name of Jean Girard could you know that?”
“Carlos showed me,” Steven said, remembering, “when I was inside his mind.”
“It’s possible,” Duane said. “Carlos probably helped develop the Dragon’s volcano technology, when he worked for Maxwell.”
Steven nodded. It all added up…and yet something seemed wrong. His instincts told him something, some piece of the puzzle, was missing. Something about the Dragon…and Maxwell…
“Okay.” Billy rubbed his hands together. “So we need to equip one team for an underwater mission and another for the desert. That’ll strain our resources to the max.”
“My husband and I can help,” Mrs. Lee said. “Where is this Lystria?”
The room went silent.
“Malik,” Liam said, turning to face the ex-Vanguards, “you ever been there?”