Balance of Power

by Stan Lee

  Monkey landed on his hands and feet, facing the soldiers. His eyes rose, briefly, to regard the spires, the metal spider legs, and the central block towering over the entire complex.

  Then his face whipped up. His cruel eyes seemed to look straight out of the hologram. He touched his earpiece and smiled wide.

  “Hey, dudes!” Monkey’s voice echoed in the cabin. “Who’s up there? Celine, I hope?”

  Celine started to speak—but Malik motioned her back, away from the hologram. She retreated to a corner of the room.

  “It’s me, Vincent,” Malik said.

  “Malik! Looks like it’s payback time.” Monkey’s grin grew wider; he seemed to have an infinite number of teeth. “But I know you didn’t come alone. Who else you got up there?”

  “Just the Ram. And your old friend Nicky.”

  Monkey snorted. “Friend? He’s just another traitor, like Celine.”

  “Dude. That hurts.” Nicky touched his heart. “You know I got mad love for you.”

  Monkey loped across the sand. He paced back and forth in front of the rigid soldiers.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Land your plane right now, and we’ll talk about stuff.”

  “Stuff?” Malik asked. “What stuff?”

  “Power. Death. The future.” Monkey stopped to caress an energy rifle in one of the soldiers’ hands. “Loyalty.”

  Malik frowned. “You think you can knock us out of the sky with those little guns?”

  “Oh, no, Malik. We’re not going to fire on you.”

  “Then give us one reason not to burn yer Tinkertoy city to the ground,” Liam snarled.

  “I’ll give you a thousand reasons.”

  In the hologram, Monkey gestured. Behind him, two soldiers turned to face each other. A clatter of movement came over the radio.

  “What are they doin’?” Nicky asked.

  Liam reached out and widened the view. As the image zoomed out, he saw that the soldiers had paired off, each facing his or her closest neighbor. Slowly, their mouths grim beneath their helmets, they raised their energy rifles and aimed them straight at each other’s heads.

  “Land the plane,” Monkey said, “or they all die.”

  “Is he serious?” Liam looked at Malik, then Nicky. “Can he do that? Make them shoot each other?”

  Malik looked unsure. Nicky shrugged, his eyes wide.

  “He can do it,” Celine whispered from the back of the room. “The Dragon…”

  Malik paced around the hologram, studying the rows of soldiers poised to shoot each other. They held their rifles steady; their hands didn’t quiver at all. The tips of their guns glowed with charged power.

  “Mind control,” Malik said. The Ox flashed above him, snorting in helpless anger.

  “Land. The plane,” Monkey repeated.

  “He’s bluffin’,” Nicky said.

  “There are people down there we used to work with,” Malik said. “Friends.”

  Liam watched Monkey, studying the cruelty and triumph on his hairy face. “Aye,” he said. “We can’t take the chance.”

  “Stand by for landing,” Malik barked. He switched off the hologram with a savage swipe of his hand.

  Celine and Dog moved toward landing couches along the sides of the cabin. They looked like sleepwalkers: helpless, defeated. Malik cast a grim look at Liam, then walked back to the pilot’s seat.

  Liam turned and followed, taking the copilot’s position for landing. “The odds seem t’be in that ape’s favor,” he observed. “Ye think we’re beat?”

  “Not yet,” Malik replied.

  Things went bad the moment they stepped off the plane. Nicky broke ranks, running forward to confront Monkey. Yellow fur spread across his body, covering his scarred face. The spectral Dog appeared, howling, above his head.

  “I’m givin’ you one warning,” Nicky growled. “Let those guys go.”

  Liam watched, shaking his head. Malik followed.

  Monkey was crouched, ready to meet them. The lines of Vanguard troops stretched out behind him, almost as far as the eye could see. There were well over a thousand of them now; they had lowered their guns but faced straight ahead, eyes glassy and blank. In the distance, the metal spires of the Lystria complex rose into the sky.

  Monkey loped forward on hands and feet. He raised his head slowly, like a shark rising out of the water.

  “You,” Monkey said, “are as ugly as you are disloyal.”

  Nicky roared and wielded his claws. Malik grabbed his arm, yelling, “No!”

  Monkey whirled around and gestured. Two soldiers stepped out of the group: a small woman and a large muscular man. They wore standard Vanguard uniforms, helmets shielding their eyes.

  Monkey flashed a nasty smile at the Zodiacs. “Watch this.” He turned to the big male Vanguard agent. “Alpha, how long have you worked with Beta here?”

  “Four years,” the man rumbled. He stood rigid, barely moving.

  “Is she your friend?”

  “Sometimes she ain’t so nice to me. But mostly, yeah.”

  “Beta,” Monkey said, turning to the woman, “would you risk your life for your partner?”

  The small woman, Beta, hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” she said.

  Monkey took a step back.

  “I want you to raise your guns and aim them at each other.”

  The two soldiers stared straight at each other. Slowly they lifted their energy rifles.

  Nicky and Malik exchanged alarmed looks. Again, Malik jerked his head at Nicky, silently ordering him: Don’t do it.

  “Mate,” Liam said, stepping forward. “There’s no need for this.”

  “Actually, there is,” Monkey replied. “Alpha. Beta. If I order you to shoot…will you do it?”

  The two Vanguard soldiers replied simultaneously. “Of course.” “Without question.”

  “Why?”

  They turned to face him, speaking in unison. “Because the Dragon is our future.”

  Liam glanced at the mass of Vanguard soldiers, arrayed across the sand. Mind control, he thought. And there’s hundreds of ’em….

  “This is what you want?” he asked, turning sharply to Monkey. “Is this the Dragon’s ideal world, the future of the human race? ’Cause it looks pretty bloody grim to me.”

  Monkey loped over to Liam. The Irishman stood still, one eyebrow raised, as Monkey sniffed in a circle, moving his head around to study Liam from every angle.

  “You won’t win,” Monkey said, the grin returning to his face. “You and Jasmine, and that yappy little Tiger of yours. You can’t win. Do you know why?”

  “Too handsome?”

  Monkey threw back his head and laughed. “You won’t win because you’re not willing to make sacrifices.”

  “Sir?” Alpha asked. His gun was still aimed at his partner, and hers at him. “Sh-should we fire?”

  Monkey turned slowly on one foot. He tapped a long finger on his chin, over and over, as if considering his answer.

  “Vincent,” Malik said. “Please.”

  Monkey whirled and flashed Malik a smile. “I like hearing you beg.” Then he turned back to Alpha and Beta with a casual wave. “Nah,” he said.

  The two Vanguard soldiers lowered their weapons. Liam sighed in relief.

  “But you would have sacrificed yourself if I asked you to,” Monkey continued. “Because the Dragon is our future.”

  “The Dragon is our future,” Alpha and Beta repeated.

  Monkey raised his arms high, like a conductor addressing his orchestra. With a quick clatter, the Vanguard troops raised their energy rifles.

  “The Dragon is our future,” they rumbled, the phrase echoing down the rows of helmeted soldiers.

  Liam stared grimly at the framework of the Lystria complex, the strange metal arms and towers rising out of the pit. Take out the control towers, he thought, and the machinery should collapse. But how do we get through a thousand-plus brainwashed soldiers to do it—without hurting ’em?
>
  Monkey was still facing the soldiers. At his command, they began to recite a chant in perfect unison.

  “The Dragon is our future,” they said. “The earth will shake; the earth will burn. When the work is done, ten percent of humankind shall remain. We are the worthy. We are the ten percent.”

  A chill ran through Liam. “Ten percent?” He turned toward his allies. “Mates, I think we better—”

  He stopped. Nicky was staring at Monkey with blank eyes. As Liam watched, the Dog fur receded from Nicky’s body, leaving him pale and human.

  “The Dragon,” Nicky said in a quiet voice.

  “Malik?” Liam said. “You said somethin’ about mind control?”

  Malik’s eyes were equally blank. “The Dragon is our future,” he said.

  Liam’s heart sank. I’m all alone, he realized. And for just a moment, the terrible doubt returned: Was this their plan all along? My so-called partners—Malik, Nicky, Snake—have they always been loyal to the Dragon? Was this mission doomed before we even started?

  Am I all alone?

  He shook his head. Get ahold of yerself, he thought. It’s not Malik and Nicky; it’s the mind control. It’s the bloody Dragon!

  He glanced at the nearest tower. I could ram it, he thought. Just take a flying leap, vault over the soldiers, and—

  Monkey laughed loudly. He danced around, capering in the sand, and came to rest with his face centimeters from Liam’s.

  “This is what happens,” Monkey hissed, gesturing at the machines of Lystria, “when you invade the Dragon’s domain.”

  “The Dragon,” Liam sneered.

  “Yes?” Monkey twisted his face around, peering into Liam’s eyes. “What about it? What are you trying to say?”

  “The Dragon is our future,” Liam said. The words were out of his mouth before he knew it.

  Monkey grinned. “Yeah, it is.”

  Liam looked around, reeling slightly. The bizarre metal arms still rose above Lystria, but now they seemed symmetrical, orderly. Their strength held the complex together. And the soldiers, spread across the sand: they were his comrades. They were the future.

  The survivors. The 10 percent.

  A warm feeling ran through him. Maybe there’s hope, he thought. Maybe I don’t have to be alone—

  Something buzzed in his ear. He heard a voice, as if from a long way away. “Liam?” Duane said. “I’m reading some strange telemetry on your—”

  Liam reached up and clicked off his earpiece.

  Dimly, he became aware of Malik and Nicky, moving up beside him. We’re brothers now, he realized. Brothers in the Dragon.

  The thought made him happy.

  Their three faces rose to stare into Monkey’s waiting eyes. “The earth will shake,” Liam chanted, the others echoing his words. “The earth will burn….”

  “LIAM? LIAM, come in, please. Liam?”

  Silence. Duane looked up at the screen directly in front of him, which showed an ID photo of Liam’s smirking face. The text overlaid on it read CALL TERMINATED.

  Frustrated, Duane yanked his earpiece out and threw it across the room. It sailed slowly through the zero-gravity chamber and bounced harmlessly off one of the hundreds of screens lining the Infosphere. He kicked off and swam through the air, fists clenched, and managed to grab the earpiece just before it could strike another screen.

  The sphere, like most of the Zodiac complex, had been designed by Carlos. It measured five meters in diameter, every centimeter of which was packed with sophisticated monitoring equipment. The screens showed security footage from the Zodiac complex, maps and schematics of the earth, Zodiac power scans from around the world, transmissions from the two active mission teams, seismic and tomographic readings from the volcano institutes, and status readouts on every currently active Zodiac-powered individual.

  None of which, Duane thought, is going to make this mission succeed.

  Using handholds, he pulled his way to a complex of screens monitoring the Lystria mission. One, labeled SATELLITE VIEW, showed nothing—just a featureless sandy landscape. The one reading STEALTH PLANE VIEW showed a shaky camera image of the same spot. But the inhuman, metallic Lystria complex was clearly visible, reaching out over that hole in the desert. A small army of Vanguard soldiers stood just outside it, facing three dots that Duane assumed were Liam and his party.

  Duane reached for the screen and pinched, trying to zoom in on the image. The three dots grew larger but no clearer. The team hadn’t had time, he remembered, to rig a remote control from the plane’s camera. Duane could manipulate the image but not the view from the camera itself.

  “Blash-dast it,” he said.

  When Duane was nervous, he tended to make up new swear words.

  Frustration built up inside him. He felt the Zodiac energy rising all around, the raging Pig snorting and pawing above his head. The screens began to spark and flicker in response.

  No, he told himself. Stay calm. If I don’t control my power, I could short out the whole Infosphere!

  And they’re counting on me. They’re all counting on me.

  He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe regularly. His power had first manifested back in Cape Town, his home city. He’d shorted out a network of government computers and been branded a dangerous hacker. After Carlos and the others had rescued him from that mess, Jasmine taught him how to keep his power from running wild.

  Now they’re counting on me. And I can’t save them.

  He forced himself to remember the techniques Jasmine had shown him. “When things get overwhelming,” she’d said, “do not try to solve everything at once. Focus on one problem at a time, and see where it gets you.”

  Okay. Problem one. He opened his eyes and scanned the row of screens. Below the image of Lystria, a long line of numbers and statistics scrolled by. The plane was still transmitting data from the site.

  Duane noted a slight surge in Zodiac energy, enough to confirm that the team was in the right place. But the EM output from the complex was still growing. That meant Liam and Malik hadn’t accomplished their mission—and now they weren’t answering Duane’s calls.

  Problem two. He shot across the Infosphere, coming to rest before a cluster of screens assigned to cover Steven’s team. At two kilometers beneath the surface, that team was cut off from radio contact, as planned. On one screen, the data buoy they’d left on the surface bobbed up and down in the choppy waves, lights blinking across its surface.

  The next screen displayed that data. Seismic readings, long-range radar/sonar scans of the deep ocean. Magnetic readings. All higher than usual.

  As Duane watched, the Zodiac energy level spiked, rising a thousand times higher than it had been. He sucked in a breath. Only one entity on Earth could command that level of power: the Dragon.

  The team, he thought. They’re right in the middle of that power storm. And Steven…

  Steven had shared his plan only with Duane. When they reached the bottom of the sea, Steven intended to split off from the others and swim alone into the heart of the volcano. He felt a responsibility, he’d said. He’d also said that he wanted to avoid a choice and break a cycle. But he hadn’t explained what he meant by that.

  Reluctantly, Duane had agreed to the plan. Now he felt guilty. I could have warned Roxanne and Kim, he thought. I should have told him not to do it.

  But he knew: You can’t tell Steven Lee what to do.

  A series of beeps rose from another quarter of the sphere. Duane pushed off and shot toward a grid of screens, each of which showed a piece of a world map. Between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, a long blurry line showed the curved pattern of the Ring of Fire—the worldwide map of underwater volcanoes. That line was pulsing, glowing. Little dots sprouted along it like buds on a rosebush, indicating new centers of volcanic activity. The line grew thicker, spreading into the vast ocean between the continents.

  “Oh, mashed potatoes,” Duane said.

  He touched an adjacent scree
n and scrolled through a series of bulletins from the volcano institutes. Seismic alerts, rising sea levels, underwater and land-based volcanoes suddenly becoming active. I’ve got more data than anyone else, he thought. This is up to me.

  He consulted a newsfeed, a summary app he’d designed for rapid skimming. Unpredicted earthquakes had just struck California, Afghanistan, and eastern China. Volcanic islands were being evacuated in Russia, the Philippines, and New Zealand. A flashing alert labeled SENDAI, JAPAN caught his eye; he clicked on it. A photo filled the screen, a horrific image of fire raging across a line of low buildings. A translated headline read WORSE THAN TOHOKU?

  So far, the authorities were downplaying the worldwide pattern. Some countries had dispatched diving teams to underwater activity sites; others were just denying the phenomenon. But they wouldn’t be able to deny it for long.

  The Pig roared and sniffed above Duane’s head as he concentrated, using his unique Zodiac power to absorb and process the data from the screens all around him. The control machinery in Lystria. The off-the-scale Zodiac readings above Tamu Massif. The line of worldwide volcanic activity, bulging and thickening before his eyes.

  Ninety minutes, he realized. That’s how long before the chain reaction becomes irreversible. Before the earth cracks open, flooding the atmosphere with deadly volcanic ash and fire.

  The Lystria team could destroy the machinery, but its members had gone off the grid. The team at Tamu Massif had an even harder job—stopping the Dragon—and that group, too, was cut off from radio contact. This plan had started off with too many variables, and things had gone progressively downhill since then.

  Stopping the Dragon. That was the real trick, the major problem—the reason, ultimately, why Duane felt so hopeless. Even if the Zodiacs could destroy the Dragon’s machinery—even if they prevented the Tamu Massif eruption and stopped the volcanic apocalypse—the Dragon itself would survive. Worse, it would be very, very angry. And nothing they could do, no technology in either team’s possession, could even put a dent in the Dragon’s power.

  He glanced at a screen on the other side of the sphere. Carlos and Jasmine lay side by side in matching beds, hooked up to blinking machines. Their eyes were closed, their bodies perfectly motionless. Dr. Snejbjerg hovered in the background, watching them with concern.