Chinese tradition holds that on the full moon of the seventh lunar month
the gates of hell open, and ghosts and spirits can enter the realm of the living.

Date: Friday, July 20, 2035
Time: 2:30 a.m.
Location: Tracy Island, South Pacific Ocean

The grand home lay sleeping atop a soaring cliff, created many thousands of years ago by the now-dormant volcano that formed its peak. The villa's windows were dark, framed here and there by billowing white curtains, or softly clattering vertical blinds. The rise and fall of insect song was a gentle backdrop to the deep slumber of the family which called this remote tropical island home.

The black velvet sky was dotted with twinkling stars, joined by the steady white light of Venus, and punctuated by the perfect circle of a full moon. Large and brilliant in its slow and steady trek across the sky, it bathed calm South Pacific waters in its ethereal glow, creating tiny sparkling points of light on the waves like diamonds cast from the Hand of God.

With three of their usual number absent, seven souls were left to drift on dreams of heroism and despair, of triumph and defeat. The man from Malaysia who had known so much strife before the island had become his refuge. The woman from Kansas, whose golden years were being spent in Paradise surrounded by those she loved most in the world. The inventor, scientist and engineer, whose mind brought forth great advancements only dreamed of by most.

And four brothers. The eldest's mouth twitched, the single sheet covering his naked form slithering away as he rolled over and turned his back to the open sliding glass door. The second eldest was face-down, nose and mouth buried in his pillow, dead to the world as he softly snuffled. The third in line lay on his right side curled slightly forward, a pillow held between his arms as his eyes moved in REM sleep. And the second youngest slept on his back with arms and legs splayed out in all directions, floating on watery dreams.

As often happened to this family of saviors, the blissful silence of the night was shattered by the blare of an alarm, bringing with it the jolt of sudden awakening for each and every one of them.

Hallway doors hissed open and closed. The pounding of feet on hardwood floors echoed off the walls as lights automatically switched on in advance of their approach. The ding of an elevator, mumbled and grumbled words of acknowledgment, and then the grind of gears as the metal box ferried four men to their destination on the villa’s first floor.

As the elevator doors slid open again, its passengers joined the three occupants whose bedrooms were on the first floor of the house. One minute later, all seven were standing inside a large room dubbed 'the office,' which also served as a lounge when guests were present.

Moments before, Scott Tracy had been dreaming of pushing his beloved rocket plane, Thunderbird One, to her very limits at sixty thousand feet above the earth. Now he pushed away the office chair from behind his father’s – mostly his, now, truthfully – antique wooden desk. With Jeff Tracy currently at Lady Penelope’s mansion in England, Scott was wholly in command of International Rescue. And the team he led stood before him now, waiting eagerly to find out what had caused the International Rescue klaxon to sound. Scott ran a hand through his wavy walnut brown hair while the command computer hummed to life and information from their space station, Thunderbird Five, began coming through.

“At least it’s close,” Scott muttered, leaning forward with his left hand supporting his weight on the desk and his right tapping out commands one-fingered.

All heads turned toward the wall opposite Jeff's desk to see what the situation was. Second from the right in a row of five digital portraits was a picture of blond-haired, blue-eyed youngest son Alan, currently with girlfriend and fellow International Rescue member Tin-Tin Kyrano in New Jersey on business for the family corporation. Scott double-clicked a command that transferred a complex, busy screen full of information funneling to them from space, from Jeff's desktop computer to Alan's portrait frame.

“Do we have audio?” The question was asked by middle son John. He absentmindedly brushed at the stubborn curl which always fell over his forehead unless he forced his light blond hair into submission with copious amounts of gel and hairspray.

“No,” Scott replied with a shake of his head. “Five alerted us based on local television and radio reports.”

“I see it’s in China,” commented the fourth son, copper-haired Gordon, who had the distinction of being the only aquanaut in the family. “They haven’t had any seismic events in the last decade, have they?”

The man who’d made all of International Rescue possible from a technical perspective, peered at Scott through the lenses of an old pair of glasses, evidently not yet having had the chance to put in the contact lenses he usually wore these days. “Gordon is, ah, correct. Scott, what region is that, exactly?” he asked, scratching at his head through short brown hair that stuck out in every conceivable direction.

“According to the triangulation of the reports Five has been monitoring for the past forty-five minutes, we’re needed near Zhongnan Mountain, southeast of Xi’an.”

The even tones of their father’s best friend, and Tin-Tin’s father, filled the air before Scott’s brothers could ask any more questions. “What is the nature of the emergency?” Kyrano asked, eyes glued to the feed from Five.

Scott looked up in surprise. Kyrano was always present here in the office at the beginning of any rescue operation, but he very rarely spoke. “A chasm is opening up, swallowing homes, villages and people,” he replied, looking back at the computer and clicking through a few pages of data with the mouse. “No one has made any calls for help. John, get on with locals in…however you say the name of the closest city, northwest of the mountain.” Scott tapped a couple of keys and a map appeared in his portrait. “That one,” he said, moving the mouse to cover a long word that began with the letter S.

John, fluent in thirteen languages and passably conversational in eight more, darted down the narrow hallway behind the control desk toward the auxiliary command center where he’d be able to use a communications device in peace.

Scott turned his attention back to Kyrano and frowned at the look on their old friend’s face. “Do you know something about this region?” he asked. It wouldn’t have surprised him if the answer had been yes, since he knew that Kyrano and Tin-Tin had traveled to many countries while on the run from Kyrano's half-brother.

“Not personally,” Kyrano replied, stepping closer to the wall portrait as Scott zoomed out slightly so that Zhongnan Mountain was central on the screen. “But if I'm not mistaken, there is a positive energy vortex located not far from this mountain, near the Xi’an Pyramids.” He turned to face Scott. “It's where the Center of Tibetan Enlightenment is located.”

Scott half-shrugged, never having been one to place much stock in the touchy-feely things Kyrano held so near and dear. Like his father, Scott struggled with believing in anything he couldn’t touch, see or hear. Besides, even if he did believe in it, Kyrano had said the energy vortex was positive…so it could only help, right?

John raced back into the room. “Guys, this is bad. Real, real bad.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I just spoke to the head of the Shibianyuxian police force. They’re trying to evacuate over two thousand people from their streets. It seems Five was right on; there’s a chasm opening in the ground and its traveling fast toward the village.”

“The town doesn’t look that big,” Virgil noted, the first time he’d spoken. The slowest of the family members to rise to wakefulness no matter how much sleep he’d gotten, he was currently in the process of digging the butt of one hand into his left eye and trying in vain to smooth down his wild chestnut-colored hair with the other. “Why are there two thousand people on the streets?”

“Yu Lan.” The answer came from Kyrano. “The fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is Ghost Day to the Chinese.”

Gordon glanced at his wristwatch display. “But it’s the 20^th of July, not the 15^th.”

Kyrano nodded. “Yes, but this celebration was most likely in honor of the full moon. Locals often shift the day of their annual festival to coincide with its appearance.”

“All right, look,” Scott said, grateful for the sliver of knowledge but impatient to stop talking about the whole thing and get on with some action. “John, Gordon, Brains, you're in Two with Virgil. China's only four hours northwest of us, so I’ll get there quick and assess the situation.”

As Scott spoke, Virgil took five long strides to a floor-to-ceiling painting of the rocket ship their father had once commanded on a mission to the Moon. Within seconds it upended him onto a sliding chute that would ferry him to the pilot chair of International Rescue’s workhorse, Thunderbird Two.

Scott stepped to the side of his father’s desk and backed up against the wall behind it. Above and to either side of his head were two light fixtures; he grabbed hold of them with both hands, and was just about to hit the button under his right thumb when he was stopped by a sudden movement.

As John, Brains and Gordon raced out of the lounge into the hallway to take the main elevator to the back of Thunderbird Two’s cockpit, Kyrano had darted forward. “I will ride with you,” he stated.

Scott stared at him. This man so rarely requested anything, and never made demands. But Kyrano’s words just now had sounded very much like an order…something so unusual that it took Scott's brain a few seconds to process it.

“Why?” Scott asked when his gray matter had finally caught up.

Kyrano swallowed and locked eyes with him. “Please. No questions. Just allow me to ride in one of the jumpseats. I will not interfere.”

Scott didn’t have time to argue, and his grandmother wasn’t going to be any help, considering she’d just sunk onto the couch with her eyes half-closed. “Okay, fine, come on,” he said crisply, waiting until Kyrano was standing nearly nose-to-nose with him before thumbing the switch that started the wall rotating on its turntable.

International Rescue had been created by Jeff Tracy, and was manned by his entire family, Brains, the Kyranos and multiple agents the world round. They existed for the sole purpose of saving the lives of people who would otherwise perish, whether due to man-made or natural disasters. After nine years of operating in full-swing, once again they were off and running…this time without their patriarch there to oversee.

And this time, for a type of disaster that was neither man-made nor natural.

Date: Thursday, July 19, 2035

Thirty-six minutes after launching Thunderbird One from Tracy Island, Scott was in the air over Zhongnan Mountain…which, via the only set of words spoken by Kyrano since launching, Scott had learned was part of the Qinling mountain range that created a natural barrier between northern and southern China.

“Thunderbird Two from Thunderbird One. I have reached Zhongnan Mountain. I see the crevasse in the earth. It looks to be a couple of miles wide at its origin, which is the base of the mountain, and extends approximately eight miles north and west, pretty close to that town you spoke to the police in, John. Am sending visual feed from External Camera B to your Monitor 3.”

“Got it, Scott,” Virgil replied, sounding much more alert now that he’d undoubtedly downed at least two large mugs of strong coffee. “John’s checking it out against seismographic indicators.”

“Which is giving me bupkis,” John interjected. “The only seismo readings we’ve got appear to have been from the crevasse formation itself. Hang on; I’m going to Comm 2 for a sec.”

“FAB,” Scott replied, wondering who it was John was calling from Two’s tiny secondary communications room. He then looked back at Camera B’s monitor and his heart caught in his throat at the image that greeted him. “That crevasse is on the move!” he exclaimed, slowing his 'bird so it hovered directly over what he was seeing. “It’s getting closer and closer to the village!”

“Ah, Scott, the only, ah, land in the area that’s flat enough for you or, ah, Thunderbird Two to put down, south, ah, southwest of Zhongnan, i-isn’t stable enough,” Brains advised. “The, ah, area is simply too mountainous, save for the, ah, village that itself is in danger of being swallowed up.”

Scott looked down at Kyrano, whose eyes were glued to Camera B’s monitor. “Kyrano, are you sure you don’t know anything about this part of China?”

“I have never been here myself,” he stated quietly. “But I know of it.”

“Well then give me something to work with!”

Seated in one of two jumpseats below Scott's gimbal-slung pilot chair, Kyrano shifted, his right hand moving to rest upon his left. It was in that movement that Scott saw a tremor he’d never noticed before. Kyrano covered it quickly by clasping his hands together in his lap, but it’d been there, Scott was certain of it.

“Don’t try to help them,” Kyrano finally said. Scott’s eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. “Return to Tracy Island now.” He looked up and met Scott’s eyes. “Please.”

“You know we don’t back off when someone needs us, and right now there’s a whole village about to die!” Scott snapped, more out of frustration than anything. “Now you tell me what’s going on, Kyrano. Why did you want to come with me? What’s making you say we should turn our backs on people who need us, for the first time in nine years?”

The airwaves were silent as Kyrano swallowed, looked down at his hands and said nothing. Just as Scott was about to order Brains to find a stable place for them to land, Kyrano finally spoke. “There is Evil here, Scott. I thought I sensed it from the island, but I couldn’t be certain until I came into the area myself, which is why I asked to ride along.”

Scott looked back down at him. “Evil?”

Kyrano nodded. “If you land, you or Virgil…” His voice trailed off and a look of what Scott could only describe as pure fear replaced the normally tranquil appearance of Kyrano’s lined and weathered face. “Please…there is nothing you can do for them.”

“Scott!” John hollered.

Scott’s face whipped toward Monitor A in time to see John barreling up behind the pilot's chair, stopping only when his head was plastered against Virgil’s. John’s crystal blue eyes were so wide that Scott could see the whites surrounding his irises. “The hell?”

“The chasm opening up isn’t the only thing they’re dealing with down there. Those people are under attack!”

“Explain!” Scott barked.

John nodded once. “I just spoke to the police station in Shibianyuxian again. There was utter mayhem in the background. I asked Wei-kuo, the man I was talking to, if the chasm had reached them; if that’s why people were screaming. He said no. He said the xi?ng shén è shà were attacking.”

“The who what? English, John!”

“Fiends,” Kyrano supplied before John could answer.

“Fiends,” Scott repeated, glancing at Kyrano, then looking back to John. “Give me more than that. What, is it wild dogs? A mob of people?”

“I don’t know. There was a loud crash and then the line went dead. Scott, we’ve got to get down there!”

“You’re right,” Scott said, “we do. Brains, give me a place to set us down, close as you can to the village, and I mean now!”

“I-It’s not safe, ah, Sc—”

“At any cost!” Scott reminded him…reminded them all. “Coordinates!”

“Latitude 34 degrees, 2 minutes, 28 seconds. Longitude 108 degrees, 58 minutes. It’s a local highway populated to the south, u-unpopulated to the north. It’s the closest I can safely get you.”

“Virgil, you heard the man. I’ll see you on the ground. Thunderbird One out.”

With that, Scott moved toward the coordinates and set about the business of landing his baby just north of the highway Brains had steered them to. As soon as One was firmly on the ground he powered her down, unbuckled his harness and made to leave the cockpit. He looked at Kyrano, who was gripping the armrests of the jumpseat so tightly that the knuckles of his tanned hands were white. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, though no sound was emerging.

“Stay here, Kyrano,” Scott said. And with that, he was out of his 'bird.

“Membantu mereka,” Kyrano whispered, eyes opening but not seeing the cockpit. “Please, I ask with all that I am. Protect them.”

Having realized that a good deal of the equipment brought with them in Thunderbird Two's Pod 5 was useless to them on this operation, Scott decided that he, John, Gordon and Virgil would take their hoverbikes with as much first aid and rescue gear as they could load onto them, and head into Shibianyuxian. From the air, Scott had seen that no building was higher than two stories, and people had been scattering north, west and southwest trying to avoid the traveling chasm coming from the southeast.

Surrounding them now were fields of dirt...making Scott think it must be in between growing seasons in this region right now...and a smattering of homes that were dark and deathly silent. Not a flicker of light shone anywhere save from the large full moon above, their hoverbike headlights and hardhat headlamps.

“All right, Brains is working on determining the cause of the traveling crevasse,” Scott advised as he tied down the last of his gear to the back seat of the red bike he was using. Virgil's was blue, John's was green and Gordon's was a sleek black. “Stay in formation behind me and watch closely because I may have to stop with little to no warning.”

They chorused “FAB” in response, each swinging their right legs over their bikes and getting them into position. The hoverbikes whirred to life, lifting five inches off the ground. Scott could see Zhongnan Mountain south of their position, and used that knowledge to point his hoverbike west.

“Comm check,” he said as he increased speed to twenty miles per hour.

“Virgil, FAB.”

“John, FAB.”

“Gordon, FAB.”

“Brains, FAB.”

“FAB,” Scott stated, then took the bike to thirty mph. “We need to get ahead of the crevasse, Brains, give me a speed indicator.”

“I-It appears to be traveling at between, ah, twenty and forty miles per hour, Scott,” Brains said. “It hesitates and then, ah, speeds up again for reasons I can't, ah, yet discern, but given where it, ah, was upon our arrival, it's probably going to, ah, hit the outskirts of the, ah, village proper in about...ten minutes.”

“All right, then we need to strap in and hit fifty with these babies to get ahead of it.”

Nearly simultaneously, the brothers reached over their torsos with their left hands, pulled X-shaped black harness belts across their torsos, and clipped them into the buckles on the left sides of their seats.

“Ready?” Scott asked.

“Ready,” they chorused.

“Then take it up to fifty. Brains, I want you to feed all bikes coordinates that'll take us parallel to the chasm at a distance of fifty feet from its widest point so far.”

“FAB. Feeding coordinates...now.”

“Damn,” Scott swore softly as the hoverbike monitor displayed directionality. “We've got to cover eight miles before we're anywhere near the head of it. Brains, check my math...that means we'll be breaking even with her in about six-and-a-half minutes.”

“Six point two five at present rate of speed,” Brains said, unable to resist his obsessive-compulsiveness where precise information was concerned. “But it will take you at least ten to get far enough ahead of it to be out of, ah, immediate danger.”

“What about local rescue?” John asked.

“I'm, ah, monitoring the frequencies, John. Xi'an isn't sending any help to Shibianyuxian because the local rescue personnel feel that, ah, the crevasse is going to threaten their own city.”

“They want to retain them for their own people,” Virgil concluded.

“Yes, ah, Virgil, that's exactly it.”

“How come you can say the name of that city like John can?” Scott asked, suddenly glomming on to the fact that Brains had done just that.

John snickered as Brains replied, “I can, ah, speak, ah, Chinese, Mongolian and Mandarin. Not to, ah, mention, Taiwanese.”

“Why does the field commander not know this?” Scott bristled, albeit it rather good-naturedly.

“You never asked,” was Brains' calm response, which elicited a snort from John.

“No wonder you two get along so well,” Scott muttered. “All right, five minutes.” He looked to his left and had to force himself to keep paying attention to where he was driving when his eyes met the very thing causing all the trouble. He whistled out long and low. “Will you look at that,” he breathed, watching incredulously as the ground just tore apart, pulling homes, streets, cars and anything else in its path, down into its widening jaws.

“That is not good,” Virgil commented.

“Are you sure that thing's not going to spread our way?” Gordon asked. “I've seen some mighty big abysses appear seemingly overnight underwater. They're unpredictable.”

“It, ah, has shown no indication of pushing beyond a one point nine-eight mile width,” Brains replied. “But since I can't, ah, pinpoint the cause of its formation, I-I can't be certain.”

“Great,” John intoned.

“When we're a half-mile in front of it, Virgil and I will take the western side, John and Gordon, you stay here on the eastern side. Do whatever you can to help anyone still left in their homes. Brains, anything on this S-town's chatter?”

“There, ah, is no chatter from Shibianyuxian, ah, Scott. I'd say their communications lines are completely down.”

They were just drawing even with the front of the chasm when a woman's voice yelled out, “B?ngmáng! Shà! Shà!”

“John, check it out. Gordon, keep going. Get ahead of the chasm, but stay on this side!”

“FAB,” the brothers responded, with John veering off slightly to the right toward a tiny one-story wooden house that resembled a hut more than anything.

Beads of sweat dotting his forehead and painting his upper lip with a transparent mustache, Kyrano's eyes suddenly opened wide as saucers as a vision appeared before him. A vision that froze his entire being and brought both his breath and his heart to a standstill.

“John,” he exhaled, shaking his head slightly. “John!”

A sudden loud series of shrieks seemed to come from everywhere at once. “All right, hold it!” Scott hollered, lifting his right hand in the universal 'stop' gesture even as he slowed his hoverbike to a halt. “What was that?”

“I have no idea,” Virgil replied, drawing even with his brother.

“Gordon, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, and it was too close to me for comfort. What kind of wildlife do they have around here?”

“Little too late to ask,” Virgil remarked.

“John, what's the situation with the woman you went after?”

Virgil and Scott looked at each other when there was no response. Both knew that since they were all wearing earbuds, even if John had had to abandon his hoverbike to rescue someone he would've been able to respond...if only to tell Scott to keep his panties on.

“John,” Scott repeated, muscles tensing and jaw working as he waited. “John, report!” he barked. Virgil flinched...not because of the terseness, but because of the worry that vibrated deep beneath it in Scott's voice.

“Scott, what's going on?” Gordon asked.

“What's your status?”

“I've searched three huts. They're literally no more than one room each and there isn't any sign of life, but...well, there're a lot of signs of death.”

“Explain.”

“Scott! Scott!”

Jerking his spine ramrod straight at the tone of Brains' voice, Scott said, “Here.”

“John's GPS just did a-a nosedive!”

“What do you mean?” Virgil asked even as Scott was restarting his hoverbike.

“Gordon, get back here and meet up with Virgil, then you two follow me.”

“Where are you going?” Virgil asked.

“To find John.”

“FAB,” Gordon replied with the sound of his hoverbike whirring to life in the background.

“But Scott, you don't know what's happened to him!”

Scott leveled his eyes at Virgil and held them for a brief moment. “Exactly,” he said quietly, then hit first gear and took off back the way they'd come. “Brains, where is he?”

“Transmitting, ah, coordinates now. Scott, he's gone, ah, three miles below ground!”

“You didn't say the chasm had branched off that direction!”

“I-It hasn't! Thunderbird, ah, Two is showing nothing there but a single, ah, structure. I-I can't explain it, he just, ah, suddenly dropped three miles ah, faster than a human body can even fall.”

“That doesn't make any sense, Brains!” Scott growled as he revved his bike up to its full fifty-mile-per-hour top speed. The engine whined in protest but he wouldn't relent. “John, this is Scott, come in!” Still nothing. “Mobile Control to Unit Three, answer me!”

Kyrano unstrapped himself from the jumpseat, his entire body shaking with fear. “Virgil.” He rose to his feet and moved quickly to Thunderbird One 's exit hatch. “Please don't take them all. Tayatha om gatey gatey paragatey parasamgatey bodhi soha.”

But as he opened the hatch, Kyrano wasn't sure the Heart Sutra mantra would protect the Tracy boys one bit.

Gordon's voice wafted into Scott's right ear. “Where's Virgil?”

Scott's eyes widened as he maneuvered around a grove of trees just in front of him. “What do you mean, you linked to his GPS, didn't you?”

“Yeah, but he's not here. I don't even see his hoverbike. Did he follow you?”

“Scott! Virgil's watch just blinked out a-and back on. He's right next to John!”

“What?”

“What the hell is going on?” Gordon asked, his usual devil-may-care tone of voice sounding a lot more frightened than Scott could remember hearing in the last two decades.

“Brains, explain!”

“I-I can't! Wait...wait, the chasm...it's stopped moving. I-I didn't even realize it because I was so, ah, focused on locating John. The, ah, the crevasse stopped opening, ah, two point two seconds after John's GPS went underground.”

Scott's every muscle was ready for action. The only problem, he realized as he drew nearer to the place John had gone searching for the yelling woman, was that there wasn't any action for him to take. It was darker than pitch out here, with only a high full moon that gave very little light to the situation. His hoverbike headlight, strangely enough, didn't seem to illuminate as far in front of him as it should’ve. It suddenly occurred to Scott that it seemed as though darkness was closing in on them, like it was something tangible that could move and reduce visibility at will. It sounded crazy, he knew, but from the air they'd been able to see things down here much better than they could now; there didn't seem to be any other explanation.

“Gordon, Brains, I see a single structure. The coordinates Brains transmitted are...just under me now,” Scott reported, suddenly bringing the hoverbike to a faster stop than was healthy. It lurched, and if not for the X-harness he wore, would've sent him flying over the handle bars like a kid falling off his bicycle.

“I'm on my way,” Gordon said. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” Scott replied, unbuckling his harness and hopping off his bike.

“No...I don't know...wells, root cellar doors?” Gordon pressed.

“Nothing, Gordon, I'm telling you. There's nothing but dirt...not even grass. No sign of John's hoverbike either.”

“How can that be?”

Scott turned as the sound of his brother's bike came within hearing distance. Then suddenly he felt the ground beneath his feet give, and yelped as it swallowed him whole.

Kyrano sprinted the hundred meters that separated the two 'birds in record time, moving into Pod 5 and running across its length to the elevator that would take him to the cockpit. He was breathing so heavily and sweating so profusely that he wasn't quite sure if he even had his wits about him. All he could see in his mind's eye was something he'd not seen in more years than he could count. Something he'd always prayed he'd never have to see again.

Just as the elevator reached the cockpit, yet another vision came to him...he watched as the earth opened and Scott Tracy disappeared into its depths. He stumbled from the elevator, sagging against the bulkhead from the force of impact to his psyche as Brains turned to stare at him.

“Scott,” Kyrano whispered, reaching out to grasp the back of Brains' chair. “No, no, no.”

“Scott?” Gordon called out as he slowed the hoverbike at the location where his instruments were telling him Scott was supposed to be. “Brains, am I in the right place?” he asked, undoing his harness and swinging his leg up and over the seat. He looked this way and that, using his headlamp to try to illuminate the area.

“Gordon,” Brains said quietly, “Scott's GPS just joined John's and Virgil's.”

Gordon swallowed hard, drew his sidearm and turned its safety off. “Get a fix on me.”

“I-I've got you. But...Gordon, ah, Kyrano's come to Two. He says...that Evil has them.”

“Kyrano, talk to me. What's going on?” Gordon asked, sweat forming at the base of his skull and across his forehead. He kept his back against his hoverbike, circling its ovular shape slowly, trying to peer into the inky blackness for any movement. There was none.

“The dead have risen this Yu Lan,” came Kyrano's voice into his ear. “But not on their own.”

“What do you mean, ‘the dead’? Are we talking zombies here?”

“No, Gordon, worse. Demons.”

“Demons?” Gordon repeated, eyes still searching the darkness, the backs of his legs touching his hoverbike. “Look, I'm out here alone, man. Tell me what to do.”

“I must join you,” Kyrano said. “I will come on a hoverbike.”

“Three of us have disappeared already. What if I'm not here by the time you are?”

“He, ah, has gone to the pod already,” Brains advised. “He...he looked...scared.”

“Oh, God,” Gordon breathed. “I've worked side by side with Kyrano for hours in our underwater biosphere. He’s talked about demons before. He said his half-brother was in league with one. The demon is why he was always able to find Kyrano and Tin-Tin while they were on the run, and why he's able to live through accidents and stuff that would kill anyone else.”

“I, ah, haven't done much research i-in that arena, I must admit,” Brains said. “But, ah, I will tell you that seeing that, ah, look on Kyrano's face is making me wish I had.”

A sudden round of shrieking just like the ear-piercing sounds that he'd heard earlier, made Gordon's hair stand on end. Everywhere was sweating now; he could feel moisture soaking the tee shirt he wore under his flight suit and sweat sliding down from his sideburns to his collar.

“Shhhit,” Gordon breathed, trying to steady his trembling body. “Being in a horror movie's a lot less fun than watching one.”

“Steady, Gordon,” Brains said, every inch of his words sounding to Gordon like he was trying to reach through the airwaves to protect him. “I wish I was there.”

Gordon barked out a laugh. “Don't say stuff like that. It's always famous last words.”

Brains twittered nervously. “Just keep talking so I know you're, ah, still there.”

Gordon nodded, though he knew Brains couldn't see him. His eyes were still picking up nothing, and aside from the rapid succession of shrieks, he wasn't hearing so much as a pin drop. “Did Kyrano grab an earbud?”

“No, ah, he was gone to the pod before I could, ah, assign him one.”

“Damn. It’s not like him to be so careless.” Gordon raised his watch to his face. “Kyrano, come in.” There was no response.

“I wasn’t able to, ah, raise him, either,” Brains advised.

“I wonder what the hell he meant by 'the dead have risen but not on their own' – if he meant demons have risen but not on their own, does that mean someone's conjured them up?”

“Possibly. Didn't you just, ah, say that he said his half-brother is in league with one?”

“Oh, fuck. You think he's behind this? That he lured us here purposely to grab both us and the 'birds?”

“I-If he is behind this,” Brains said, “then I, ah, echo your 'oh, fuck.'”

Gordon snorted. Hearing Brains curse wasn't something that happened every day. “If that's the case, you could be the last line of defense for our technology.”

“Well, ah, One and Two are both cloaked now,” Brains said amidst a couple of beeps on his end. “I-I don't know what else I can do. I have all of Two's cameras monitoring and a-am remoting into One's cameras now.”

“Aaap!”

“Gordon?”

Seated in the rear of Thunderbird Two's cockpit, Brains swallowed hard as he spoke again.

“Gordon!”

The only answer was total silence.

Date: Friday, July 20, 2035
Time: 12:30 a.m.
Location: Wutaixiang, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China

The whir of the hoverbike, the only sound to be heard for miles, slowed to a hum and then ceased altogether as its rider brought it to a stop fifty yards from a small one-room hut. Looking much older than his sixty-three years, Kyrano quietly slid from the seat and moved to stand at its front.

With the hoverbike off, only the light of the full moon above aided his ability to see. And yet it hampered him not, for Kyrano wasn’t looking with the dark brown eyes upon his face; he was looking with his soul. And what he found, as he allowed the environment to permeate his cells…as his mind reached out like a radar scan…was that his worst fears were confirmed. Not only was the positive energy vortex near the Xi’an pyramids some miles away no longer positive, but the one person whose presence he dreaded more than all the demons in existence, was the cause.

Trembling so hard it was throwing off his center of gravity, Kyrano fought past visions that were determined to rear their ugly heads in his mind’s eye. Eyelids closing tightly, he prayed to the Masters who had always guided and protected him, for their assistance…not only in fighting his own demons, but in fighting those his half-brother had, he now understood, used to convert the vortex from positive to negative.

And in the process, the demons were taking the payment that Belah Gaat had guaranteed them: human souls. That the earth had split at its seams was more the result of demon hunger than his half-brother’s design. The demons would do as they were commanded, but when it came to exacting promised rewards, even Gaat and his primary demon could not control their appetites.

That was why, now, the people of the cities, towns and villages surrounding the vortex were dying. Kyrano had little doubt there was a system of caves beneath the entire area, for he knew that the Center of Tibetan Enlightenment itself made extensive use of the more shallow caverns. To the marrow of his bones, Kyrano knew that the Tracy sons were in grave danger…not from death itself, but from a fate much worse.

Yet as progressed as Kyrano’s soul had become, there was little he could do here alone in the midst of what amounted to a demon takeover of the upper world. Gaat and his demon, the one who had owned him body and soul since his teenage years, had summoned a great horde of her kind. He felt each and every one of them like a blemish upon the planet, forcing fear to take root in his heart…a fear he felt incapable of overcoming.

There was only one way he could think of to not only spare the lives and souls of the Tracys, but also the remaining humans in this region who hadn’t yet become victims: he had to come face to face with the one who wanted him and his daughter dead. And yet even as the thought settled into place, he questioned whether it would do any good to confront the man. If he was aware that the four brothers had been captured, it was likely he was already in the process of claiming them. If he didn’t know, then Kyrano would be giving him new information that he would undoubtedly use to his advantage.

Indecision became his reality as he surveyed the landscape bathed in an eerie light from the full moon. Confront the source of the Evil? Retreat and wait for reinforcements? And yet who could help him? The Buddhists at the Center were able to project good, but he doubted they had demon-fighting skills. Kyrano knew how the demons could be beaten. What he didn’t know, was where others like him might be that could help him do so.

Then, as though his cry to the Masters for assistance had suddenly been answered, a thought manifested in his mind which scattered the fear, the indecision, the questioning and the doubt to the winds. In that moment of clarity, he realized that this, all along, had been the reason he’d survived all those years being pursued by Belah. This was why he had come into the lives of Jeff Tracy and his sons. Not only would his daughter be forever safe, but thanks to what Kyrano had to now do, so ultimately would Jeff and his sons.

He swallowed once and moved toward the one-room hut. As he approached it, the door swung open. A large, black shadow appeared in the shape of a huge hulk of a man with bulging muscles and an energy that bled darkness from the core of his being. Kyrano swallowed hard, sweat beading, running in rivulets down his body in places where the fabric of his flowing cotton shirt and pants didn’t touch his skin. His hair dampened at the nape of his neck as he forced one foot in front of the other to bring him nearer to his fate.

“What,” a thickly-accented bass voice boomed, “are you doing here?”

When Kyrano spoke, he couldn’t disguise the sound of ultimate fear in his voice…in the tremor and softness of his words, he knew his enemy could hear it and damned his lack of control in this moment of truth. “I have come to trade myself for those taken under my watch.”

He stopped as the last word was spoken; from a distance of only four feet, he could now see his half-brother’s visage well enough to note a flicker of surprise cross his face. “For what reason have you traveled all this distance?”

“We came to help the people your army of demonic spirits is destroying,” Kyrano explained. “But four not from this area have been seized. I am here to reclaim them.”

Silence hung heavy between them as Belah closed his eyes. Kyrano knew he had to be communicating with his demon. His suspicions were confirmed when Gaat’s eyes reopened and a wicked grin spread across his face. “So…International Rescue are at the mercy of my legion. And you? What have you to offer that is more valuable to me than them?”

Kyrano took one more step forward. “Myself,” he said and then, in remembrance of a time long past when once he had been kept as slave in the temple of his half-brother, he genuflected before him. Shame filled his mind, flushing his cheeks and bringing tears to his eyes. “You have wanted me since before you even knew of their existence.” He looked up at his brother, knowing that within those dark glittering eyes dwelt the heart of an ancient warrior and brilliance born of the knowledge and power he’d gained through the use of black magick.

“You?” Belah asked, incredulity following the word into the still night that surrounded them. “Surely you know how valuable they would be to me. The financial gain alone, not to mention the satisfaction of crippling Jeff Tracy and his beloved rescue business. The fool would do anything to free his sons from imprisonment…including give me every last cent and every last piece of technology he owns.”

Whether that was true or not, Kyrano couldn’t be certain. That Jeff would do anything to save his sons was unquestionable. That he would sacrifice the future of the entire planet to do so, was something Kyrano didn’t know that he could predict.

“I find it amusing that in my endeavors here, I hadn’t even thought of International Rescue,” Belah continued. “And yet they have been delivered to me as though the Fates themselves orchestrated it.” Belah took one step forward. Still on his knees, Kyrano cringed before him, fully understanding in that handful of seconds that he had not moved beyond the grip of terror he’d felt squeezing his heart since the first time Belah had tried to kill him. He had not evolved as much as he’d thought. He still lived beneath this man’s shadow in every moment of every day. Being insulated from it on Tracy Island had done nothing to truly cleanse him of his half-brother’s influence. His heart sank as each and every truth hit home.

A massive cry erupted from all around them. Belah looked up sharply, glaring into the darkness as though he could actually see what was hidden in the shadows. Kyrano, eyes grown wide, strained to put form to the noises he heard as creatures drew nearer to them. He knew he had to keep absolutely still. Any sudden movement might provoke an assault by the legion gathered round that would find both him and his half-brother meeting their deaths.

“What is this?” Gaat bellowed. More shrieking followed, this time from individuals at odd points of the compass. “Why have you stopped your work? The energy conversion is not yet complete!”

A thousand voices whispered all at once in a language Kyrano couldn’t hope to understand. And yet as his eyes fell upon his half-brother, he knew for a fact that Belah understood each and every word being spoken.

“How dare you!” he bellowed, causing some of the creatures to skitter backwards. The rustle of their wings and the shuffle of their feet were the only indications Kyrano had that they existed physically at all. He watched Belah, unable to tear his eyes away as the man exited the hut and moved to stand beside him. “You shall not claim their souls!”

A sliver of hope began to appear through the black cloud of doubt manifesting in Kyrano’s mind.

“They were never meant to be here! They were not part of the deal!” Belah roared.

He was losing control. The demons who had obeyed his wishes were now rebelling, their desire to claim the sweet souls of men who devoted their lives to Goodness overcoming whatever failsafe Belah had put into place to ensure their compliance.

More whispered words, ranging from the lowest pitch audible to human ears to octaves higher than Kyrano knew he was capable of picking up. Slowly he rose from his knees until he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Gaat. His brother turned gleaming eyes upon him.

“You cannot allow them to take Tracy souls,” Kyrano said, surprising even himself with the steadiness of his voice. “You know it’s wrong, Batu.”

Gaat growled at the use of his childhood nickname, but made no move to strike him and offered no words of rebuke.

Kyrano’s sliver of hope had just opened the most infinitesimal of chinks in his half-brother’s armor, and so he pressed on. “If you’d been meant to take them, you would not have failed each time you tried. You failed when you nearly killed your own niece aboard Fireflash,” Kyrano said, voice rising slowly in volume as each word tumbled forth. “You failed with the Red Arrow program and you failed at the alien movie set.”

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, a perfect echo of the continued low growl coming forth from Gaat’s throat.

“You failed when you triggered the nuclear reactor meltdown, you failed when you used me to disable Thunderbird One’s automatic camera detector. You had Brains and Tin-Tin at Lake Anasta and yet you didn’t kidnap or kill them after extracting the information you desired.”

“Enough,” Belah seethed.

The hope within had grown and grown, empowering Kyrano as he moved to stand face-to-face with the man who could, with but a single thought, murder him where he stood. “You never wanted to kill the Tracys or Tin-Tin. Or Brains. Not as you did me. My death would simply have solidified your ownership of my birthright, my legacy as a prince.”

Belah’s jaw worked as he glared at his older half-brother.

“If they die,” Kyrano said softly, “then everything ends, and you know it. Without them to maintain the balance of power on Earth, ultimately even you won’t survive.”

“If they die,” Belah repeated, seeming to look inward upon his own mind as the words left his lips. “If they die…”

Bringing himself to stand as tall as he could, still some six inches shorter than Gaat’s considerable height, Kyrano spoke the final words he would say on the matter. “I offer myself to this horde in exchange for the four Tracys they’re holding below ground. If you do not make the trade, you know the demons will claim their souls. And you don’t want them stolen from you in that way.”

“Bastard!” Belah spat, whirling to face the opposite direction. And then his voice rang out so high-pitched it pierced Kyrano’s eardrums painfully. There wasn’t a syllable among the sounds he could recognize and yet instinctively he knew the voice didn’t belong to his half-brother…which meant it had to be the voice of the dreaded demon he’d bonded with as a child.

The voices of the demons surrounding them filled the night sky in a fiendish chorus. The ground shook beneath their feet, throwing Kyrano off balance. He caught his footing again and saw at once the reason the earth was moving. There, not a foot in front of Belah, a hole had formed, pulling itself apart, widening, widening…larger and larger until it was the length and breadth of a full-sized car.

The demons screamed; Kyrano felt assaulted by anger from every direction. And yet in spite of the bombardment, a cocoon enveloped him in its sweet, safe embrace as he walked to the edge of the abyss flanked by his half-brother.

“Take them,” Belah said, voice so deep and low it could barely be heard even as his lips touched the shell of Kyrano’s left ear. “Take them and be gone before the swarm is upon you.”

Kyrano turned to look into his half-brother’s eyes, bringing them nose-to-nose.

“Before even I am unable to intervene,” Belah finished.

There were so many things Kyrano wanted to ask in the nanoseconds where darkest blue eyes that were nearly black with the accumulated sludge of years of collusion with Evil, collided with his own. Yet there was no time to be lost, for Kyrano knew Belah would soon lose control of the beasts which threatened them all.

And so he turned away from his half-brother, raised his arms above the chasm and began to chantTurn away the dark and bring my charges to the light in his native Malay. The rise and fall of his voice as the words whispered into the ether, “ Berpaling gelap,” and rose in tone, “dan membawa,” and increased in octave, “tuduhan saya” and stayed steady in the face of the cacophony surrounding them, “kepada cahaya!”

A sound that could only be described as what old-style records sounded like when they were played backwards, sped across molecules of air at lightning speed. A brilliant bolt of lightning came from the heavens, striking into the hole before Kyrano even as an accompanying sonic boom vibrated through his entire being.

Silence.

Kyrano opened his eyes. The full moon sagged in the western sky as the first telltale signs of dawn appeared on the eastern horizon. There before him were four differently-colored hoverbikes, and four Tracy sons slumped on the ground next to them. All at once Brains’ voice started transmitting to all five of their wristwatch communicators. When Kyrano lifted his own watch to his face, the relief pouring through from the scientist was palatable.

“It’s all right, Brains. I’ll need your assistance to return them to the Thunderbirds.”

“I-I’ll bring the bus!” Brains stammered joyfully, then cut the transmission.

Kyrano turned, half-expecting to find Belah still standing there next to him but unsurprised to discover that he and the Tracys were alone. He wondered where Gaat had retreated…to his temple in the jungles of their native country, perhaps…and what the man’s fate would be now that he had denied his demon’s horde the prizes they had sought.

He looked down at the placid unconscious faces of Scott…of Virgil…of John…of Gordon. As his eyes came to rest upon each, he silently thanked the Masters and all the Universe for their lives. And he knew, as he closed his eyes to feel their goodness seep into him, that in order to save their souls he had taken upon himself a task which changed his life from this moment on. For as he had chanted and summoned them to return from below, he had called them his charges.

So now with their lives and souls spared at his behest, that was exactly what the Tracys had become. More than ever, Kyrano knew now that he had to fight to overcome his own past, age-old fears and everything that still held him back. And at any cost, it was his duty to protect Jeff, his sons, his mother, Brains and Tin-Tin from that which truly would throw everything on Earth out of balance.

The essence of the Universe itself, since the beginning of the beginning, had always been about balance. And as he had told Belah, without the Tracys existing in the way that they did, such Evil would overtake the planet that even devotees of darkness would perish in the end.

In the case of this one family, at least, it was now Kyrano’s responsibility to see that the balance remained.

He smiled as the rumble of International Rescue’s city bus-sized vehicle, which they themselves called ‘the bus,’ wafted through the pre-dawn sounds of birdsong.

“Kyrano!” Brains exclaimed as he jumped out of the bus almost before it’d stopped moving. “The fissure’s gone! I-It’s like nothing happened here!” He ran up to Kyrano and impulsively wrapped his arms around him. “I don’t know what you, ah, did, but…” He pulled away and looked into Kyrano’s eyes, growing still at what he seemed to see there. “Whatever you promised in exchange for, ah, what’s happened,” he ended in a whisper, “I’ll help you.”

A smile spreading on his face, Kyrano nodded, squeezing Brains’ forearms in thanks. Then he turned to the task of lifting Scott into his arms and settling him into one of the twelve bunk beds inside the bus. As Brains came in with the first hoverbike, and Kyrano made to return for the next Tracy brother, he was stopped by a hand gripping his. When he looked down, it was to find Scott trying to rouse himself to wakefulness.

“Kyrano,” Scott breathed, eyelids trying to force themselves closed against his wishes, “what happened?”

Leaning forward, Kyrano carefully removed Scott’s hardhat, laying it on the floor next to the bed and then placing a comforting hand on Scott’s forehead. He knew that the brothers would remember almost nothing of what had transpired save perhaps for flashes of sounds and brief images that they wouldn’t be able to identify. “Everything is all right now, Scott. Rest.”

Scott nodded, his hand dropping back to the bed as sleep claimed him. Kyrano righted himself and moved back outside to help Brains with the other brothers and bikes. It was hard to believe, he thought as he stooped to lift Virgil into his arms, that the greatest enemy of International Rescue had, in effect, ensured their continued operation.

Beyond the fact that he was now avowed to protect the Tracys from Evil until he drew his last breath, Kyrano knew the significance of his half-brother’s decision to free them when he so easily could have killed them. That one act meant that somewhere deeply buried within the demon-owned noumenon of Belah Gaat was the possibility that one day he, too, could be saved.