I woke to the sound of explosions.

Smoke wafted through the air. I sat up, blinking in the bright sunlight – why exactly was I outdoors? Roof. I was on a building roof, at least, from the look of it.

Black soot and char coated the ground. Smoke spewed from a ventilation unit next to me.

Building must be on fire. Right. Fits with the explosions. And the screams I’m hearing. And the sirens.

BOOM! BOOM!

And the explosions continued.

“Help!” A young woman’s cry broke the stillness.

That was much nearer….

I looked around. The cry had come from the edge of the roof…. Oh gods.

I ran over to the railing. Looked over.

A terrified teenager was hanging from the side of the building. With one hand.

“Hey!” She looked upwards. “Help! Please!”

“Grab my hand!” I reached for her, bracing myself against the parapet. Stretched. Inches away…. She tried to reach up with her other hand, holding on to the edge….

Almost….

Another boom! and the building vibrated.

The girl was terrified. “I can’t reach!”

“You can. I won’t let go.” I tried to lean over even more. Almost there….

Fingers touched. Then the hand. Then…. I had a grip.

I hauled her up.

Once she was over the railing and on the roof, I sat her down. The kid seemed to be okay. Minor scrapes, clothes soaking wet, blood on one arm, and a bruise was forming on her eyebrow.

“You okay?” I asked. “Any pain?”

“N… no,” she sniffled, “… Why are you naked?”

What.

I took a step back. Looked at myself. I’m naked. Not a stitch of clothing on me, and I’m flashing this kid.

I took a deep breath. Covered my crotch. Looked the kid in the eye. “I don’t know why I’m naked. Can we pretend this didn’t happen? Isn’t happening?”

“Yeah,” the girl said, a tremor in her voice. “Listen… Thanks for… saving me. I don’t know how much longer I could have held on…… If you’d stopped to dress….”

“I might not have made it, gotcha. How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” the girl said. “My name’s Anne, and I’m in the ninth-grade class of Everard High School. What’s your name?”

“I’m…” I froze.

I couldn’t remember my name.

The girl – Anne – looked at me expectantly. “Uh…. what do I call you?”

“I don’t know.” I murmured. “I don’t know! Dammit!”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah but….” I groaned. “I think I have amnesia.”

“Seriously?”

“The first thing I remember is waking up on this roof.”

“Naked?”

“Naked.”

“Anything else?”

“Well…. Explosions.” An idea occurred to me. “Explosions! A blast must have knocked me out. I then recovered and…. and…. came up to the roof?”

“What about your clothes?”

“Maybe I was bathing, and then the blast knocked me out and …. knocked out my memory…. and I recovered in time to hear you yelling for help.”

“Uhh….” Anne gave me a dubious look. “I wasn’t hanging there that long…. That’s awfully fast?”

“Got a better explanation?”

“No.”

“Okay, then let’s go with this.”

“Suuuure…. Here, take this.” She handed me her woollen sweater. “You can tie it around…. You know.”

“My dangly bits?”

The teen gave me a weak grin. “That would be funny if you were seventy instead of seventeen.”

“Uh… I don’t know how old I am.”

Anne shrugged. “You look about sixteen or seventeen to me. I’m guessing. Now please put something on.”

It took me a minute to tie the woollen garment into a sort-of-breechclout. A wet breechclout. Well, we can’t have everything...

“Very fashionable,” commented Anne.

“At least I won’t get arrested for public indecency,” I muttered. “Thanks for the clothes.”

She shrugged. “Thanks for saving my life.”

BOOM!

“Okay,” I grumbled, “what’s with the explosions?”

“You don’t know?”

“Not a clue.”

“The city’s under attack by the Hierarchy.”

“The what?”

“The Hierarchy – you know, the aliens that have been attacking us for years now? You do remember the aliens, right?”

“I don’t remember anything. Which city is this, anyway?”

“Tanisport,” Anne replied. “On the Atlantic coast. You know where Tanisport is, right?”

“Never heard of Tanisport,” I muttered. “Which country are we in?”

She gave me a Look. You know, the kind of Look kids give when you ask something exceptionally stupid? “The United States.”

“Okay, that I’ve heard of. Fifty states, founded 1776, so we’re somewhere on the U.S. Atlantic coast….”

“On the roof of the Stephen Hawking Museum building….”

“On the roof of the Stephen Hawking Museum building, which is currently on fire….”

“What?” Anne yelped.

“Smoke’s coming from the vent,” I pointed helpfully. “Which means that there’s a fire in the building.….”

“And we’re on the roof.”

“Yes. So logically we need to get to safety somehow….”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Anne gave me another Look. “We need to get off the building somehow.”

“There must be a door somewhere, access off-roof. Or a fire escape.” I began to look around.

At which point I had my second major surprise of the day.

DING!

Letters began to appear in mid-air. Shiny white letters, floating with no support.

I blinked. Closed my eyes, opened them again. No luck. Letters still there. “Do you see that?” I pointed to them.

“See what?” asked Anne.

“There….” I trailed off as I began to read what the letters said. As I did, my heart began to sink.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEGUN YOUR JOURNEY THROUGH THE WORLD.

PREPARE WELL, FOR DANGERS AWAIT YOU.

YOU HAVE RECEIVED A QUEST: ESCAPE FROM THE BURNING BUILDING!

REWARD: 100 XP

FAILURE: DEATH

TIME LIMIT: 45 MINUTES BEFORE THE BUILDING COLLAPSES.

I stared at the letters.

The invisible letters which only I could see.

Okay, I’m definitely going crazy. Or, in this new world with aliens attacking and cities I’ve never heard of, invisible letters spelling out a course of action may actually make sense.

I reached out to touch the letters. My hand went through them. Even with the letters of the word “Quest” inside my arm, there was no sensation of anything touching it.

It seemed that the effect was at the level of my eyes, but not my skin.

Of course, I didn’t want to have ghostly letters floating in mid-air and distracting me. Was there a way I could get rid of them…?

Hmm, they seemed to be like letters on a computer screen. Maybe they were a real-world text box? I tried to swipe the letters upwards, downwards, left, right. To my relief, swiping right made the letters disappear.

“Why are you waving your hand like that?” asked Anne.

A small clock appeared at the upper right edge of my vision: 44:43. It started ticking down.

Okay, let’s assume that the hallucination – illusion – whatever – had some actual basis in fact. The building was on fire, so it was logical that we should try to escape. Eventually the fire might gut some structural elements, in which case the building would, in fact, collapse – which, according to the timer, was likely to happen in forty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds.

No pressure.

“Hey! Don’t zone out!”

“Sorry …. Okay, it seems likely the building will collapse under the effect of the fires… so we need to get to safety fast. Preferably in the next forty-four minutes.”

“Why forty-four minutes?”

“Call it a feeling. Do you see a fire escape anywhere?”

She looked around. “I think there’s one on that side. Shouldn’t we take the stairs?”

“The fires might block our way.”

“Fire escape it is.”

DING!

FOR CONVINCING A RELUCTANT TEENAGER, YOU HAVE GAINED +1 CHARISMA!

Seriously?

I swiped right, getting rid of the annoying text. We could puzzle out what it meant later.

Anne had reached the fire escape, which was a green metal ladder of some sort. She began to climb down. I was about to start when I remembered one major concern.

“Do me a favour,” I said, “and don’t look up.”

“Why not…. Oh! That thing doesn’t….”

“… function as underwear, yeah.”

She giggled. “I’ll allow you your modesty.”

“Thanks ever so much."

About ten minutes of climbing down ten flights of stairs later, we were on the ground. The timer was still ticking ominously, however.

The alley where we got down was cluttered with dropped packets and briefcases. Two crashed cars, one of which was on fire, blocked the road entrance. No people visible, but we could hear the sirens in the distance. Closer by, but still some distance off, there were screams, the rat-a-tat of gunfire, and the bang! and boom! sounds of explosions.

I crept up to the crashed car – the one that wasn’t burning – and peeked out into the street. A few people running, but mostly a deserted lane with lots of smashed windows, more crashed cars, and a few more buildings on fire.

“What are you doing?” asked Anne.

“Checking for hostiles.”

“Why are you hiding behind the car?”

“I’m taking cover in case somebody starts shooting at us.”

“Oh.” She seemed nonplussed. “The car won’t help with that. Mostly they explode when the aliens shoot them.”

“How do you know they explode?”

“I saw it online. The aliens use plasma weapons, which are really hot and make anything they hit catch fire. They talked to us in school about stop, drop and roll.”

“Stop, drop and roll?”

“If you get hit by plasma weapons and your clothes catch fire, stop what you’re doing, drop on the ground and roll until the fire gets doused.”

I thought about that for a second. “If plasma’s hot enough to make cars explode when it hits, wouldn’t it basically just roast you if you got hit?”

Anne shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not too great at physics.”

“You’re in school, right?”

“High school. Ninth grade.”

“Did they also teach you what to do during an alien attack?”

“Uhh….” She nodded. “There are bomb shelters throughout the city. We can go to one of them. In fact, my dad’s probably in one right now.”

“Great. Any idea where we can find a shelter?”

“The nearest one is…” She pulled out her phone. “Uhh…. No signal. Can’t find it on GPS…. Wait…” She pressed a few buttons. “Ah! The nearest one is at Enderby and Fifth.”

“Where’s that?”

“I know the way. It’s about two miles in that direction.” She pointed to the left. “We can make it if we walk fast.”

“Sure,” I said, “but we need to make a quick stop first.” I pointed to a store with the glass smashed in and a broken display pane – URBAN OUTFITTERS. “Think they’ll mind?”

Anne giggled. “Technically that’s looting.”

“I’ll pay them after the aliens stop attacking.”

Ding!

The white letters began to float before my eyes again.

QUEST ALERT: GET DRESSED.

FIND SOME CLOTHES BEFORE ANYONE ELSE SEES YOU!

SUCCESS REWARD: +50 XP.

FAILURE REWARD: DECREASED RELATIONSHIP WITH ??????, STATUS EFFECT “EMBARASSED”, TITLE “STREAKER”, POSSIBLE ARREST, POSSIBLE INCARCERATION.

BONUS OBJECTIVE: PAY FOR THE CLOTHES AFTER THE ATTACK.

BONUS REWARD: +50 XP, +2 ETHICS POINTS (WHITE), INCREASED RELATIONSHIP WITH ?????

I swiped the message away, annoyed.

“Why are you waving your hands in the air like that?”

“….. Can I explain this in a bit?”

Anne shrugged. “Okay, but if you have Tourette’s or something just warn me.”

We scampered across the road and into the store.

As soon as I entered the store, there was another Ding!

QUEST COMPLETE: ESCAPE THE BURNING BUILDING!

REWARD: YOU DIDN’T DIE, ISN’T THAT ENOUGH? NO? ALL RIGHT, HERE’S A LITTLE SOMETHING TO KEEP YOU GOING.

+100 XP FOR COMPLETING THE QUEST WITHIN THE TIME LIMIT.

BONUS OBJECTIVE COMPLETED: SAVE A LIFE!

YOU HAVE SAVED THE LIFE OF ANNE DRAKE, A TEENAGER WHO WAS DANGLING OFF THE SIDE OF A BURNING BUILDING IN MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. FOR THIS ACT OF COURAGE AND SELFLESSNESS, YOU GAIN +10 ETHICS POINTS.

UNLOCKED: KARMA METER

BONUS REWARDS: +100 XP, INCREASED RELATIONSHIP WITH ANNE DRAKE, NEW SKILL GAINED: OBSERVE.

NEW QUEST: FIND OUT WHY ANNE WAS DANGLING FROM THE PARAPET.

REWARD: INCREASED RELATIONSHIP WITH ANNE DRAKE.

It’s official. Somebody hates me. Somebody powerful enough to pepper my mind with hallucinations….

Were these hallucinations, or were they actually grounded in reality?

One way to find out. Anne hadn’t told me her surname – the mysterious letters had.

Okay, so test if these are actually my mind playing tricks on me or if something else is going on. If Anne’s surname was something else, then it meant that the entire illusion was in my mind – my subconscious giving me suggestions – and I needed a therapist.

If her surname was actually what the mysterious letters suggested – then it meant something deeper was at work here.

FOR FORMULATING A HYPOTHESIS TO TEST THE NATURE OF PERCEIVED REALITY, YOU HAVE GAINED +1 WISDOM!

BONUS REWARD FOR DOING IT WHILE STILL MOSTLY NAKED.

GAINED TITLE: “THE NOBLE SAVAGE”

150% BONUS TO TESTS REQUIRING WISDOM WHILE MOSTLY UNDRESSED.

Seriously?

No. No cursing at the weird letter-generating entity in my mind until I find some clothes.

And on that note, I should probably test the hypothesis….

“So,” I said casually, rummaging through a rack of men’s trousers, “I never got around to asking your full name.”

“Drake,” she replied. “Anne Drake.”

Ouch. Nature of reality confirmed. The weird letter generating entity in my head actually has the ability to interact with reality, so it’s not just a hallucination.

Unless Anne is also a hallucination, along with the whole world….

Stop. That way lies madness. Or Inception memes.

“I live at 2508 Pendleton, which is somewhere in the direction we’re going,” Anne continued. “You don’t remember anything about yourself?”

“Right now, I wish I remembered my trouser size,” I muttered. “These are going to take forever to try.”

“Sweatpants,” Anne suggested. “They tend to be the one-size-fits-all. My dad likes them; they don’t need to be changed if he puts on a few inches.”

“Uh, okay.” I grabbed sweatpants and a T-shirt. “Let’s see if this works.”

I put on the pants and checked myself in front of the store mirror. No blood anywhere, good, I didn’t get cut by anything. Huh. I had black hair and brown eyes. The same shade as Anne.

As soon as I’d donned the shirt, another Ding! Interrupted my concentration.

QUEST COMPLETE: GET DRESSED.

YOU ARE NOW DECENT! AT LEAST YOU WON’T GET ARRESTED FOR FLASHING A MINOR.

GAINED +50 XP.

EQUIPPED: LOOTED SWEATPANTS. COLD RESISTANCE 5%.

EQUIPPED: LOOTED T-SHIRT. COLD RESISTANCE 1%.

I swiped right to get rid of the letters. Actually, better call them ‘notifications’ – like on a smartphone – they seemed to be just as annoying.

Speaking of smartphones….

“Is there anyone we can call?”

“Uh, no, the cell network’s down. Probably from the alien attack.”

“Right – but you just checked the directions on GPS?”

“That’s from the emergency app. It works even when the network is down. Technically it’s not GPS … it has your location saved when the network disconnects, and shows the route to shelters marked on the city map.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “So now that I’m dressed, shall we get to the shelter?”

“Sure,” she nodded, and we headed out into the city.

Most of the lanes and alleys we went through had a few crashed cars decorating them. Fires and rubble were commonplace.

“This might be considered a new art style,” I said. “Urban deconstruction? Desolation chic?”

“Apocalypse modernist,” quipped Anne.

“Dystopian diorama,” I grinned. “I take it you’re not a fan of modern art either.”

“I only appreciate it when it makes sense,” she shot back, “which is none of the time.”

“So,” I mentioned, trying to be casual, “how did you end up falling off the roof of that building?”

A shadow crossed her face. “I didn’t fall, exactly…. I was pushed.”

My mental brakes screeched to a halt.

Very carefully, I turned to her. “Someone pushed you off a roof?”

“My classmate.”

“Some classmate.”

“It’s complicated."

“How did it happen?” I asked gently.

“We were in the museum to see the Fortress Skyguard exhibit. That’s when the sirens started going off. The teacher took us to the roof.”

“There were other kids on the roof with you?”

“Six of us. The class was on a school trip, we’d split between the three teachers. When the alarm went off Mrs. Delft took us up to the roof.” She took a deep breath. “That’s when the blast hit.”

“The blast?”

“Energy blast. I saw a Hierarchy ship flying overhead – they were firing on the city. One blast hit the roof…. they got Mrs. Delft. One moment she was there, the next moment…. Her, Avra, and Shyam – all of them just – gone.”

“You don’t need to talk about this now, if you don’t want to.”

“No, I…. I think I need to.” She turned left into another road, and I followed. “I want to tell someone; in case something happens…. I don’t want Avra and Shyam’s parents to, you know, not know what happened.”

“Okay.”

“The blast knocked me down. I was behind the water tank, got soaked. It was hot…. Bennie and June and the others were just …. vaporized. Sirens were going on….”

“But you got back up?”

“Yeah. At that point….” She swallowed. “The only ones on the roof were Wanda and me. I’d been knocked down …. Wanda came.” Pause. “Then I threw up, and Wanda held me. She said I was lucky I hadn’t been knocked a few feet further back, or I would’ve gone over the wall for sure. I said, yeah, thanks. I was, you know, happy she helped me. Then she... she pushed me over.

“I only just managed to grab the gargoyle. I… must’ve cut something when I went over….” She held out her still-bleeding hand. “I guess that she hadn’t forgotten after all.”

“Forgotten what?”

She hesitated. “Brad.”

“Who’s Brad?”

“…. A guy. Brad Meadows.”

“So… you both liked the same guy?”

“That’s what makes no sense! I wasn’t even interested in him!”

“Okay…. She thinks you like this guy and wanted to kill you for it?”

“I don’t know!” Anne exclaimed. “All I know is, she starts hanging out with Brad, and now she’s trying to kill me! It’s almost like she’s controlled. Except that that’s not how mind control works.”

What.

“Mind control?” I asked.

“Yeah. They had a class on that in school too – how to recognize if someone close to you is being mind controlled.”

“Mind controlled by aliens?”

Anne giggled. “No, silly, mind controlled by Masters.” A pause. “You know what Masters are, right?”

“Er, no. As far as I know mind control is the realm of really bad science fiction.”

“You must really have forgotten a lot.” We turned into an alley, following her smartphone map. “Masters are superhumans capable of mind control.”

“Superhumans? Please tell me you’re joking.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow. You don’t know about superhumans either?”

“Not at all. Invading aliens and superhumans fighting them off? Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie.”

“Well, it’s real life around here. Do you remember anything? About the superheroes?”

“Only seen them in comic books.”

“You might see one soon. The Flying Storm might be helping push back the invaders. Or Lady Lumina, maybe.”

“Who are Lumina and the Flying Storm?”

“They’re the superheroes based here in Tanisport. Two of them, anyway. We call people with powers ultrahumans.”

“Ultrahumans are superheroes?”

“Well, superheroes or supervillains.”

“Let me guess - people who use their powers for evil?”

“Evil or crime. Generally, as a group, you call them ultrahumans. Wait - I might have some stuff about this on my phone….” Anne stared at the screen. “Oh crud.”

“What happened?”

“Uh - it looks like there was some sort of EM pulse. Wiped out most of the stuff stored on my phone. All of the contact numbers, too.”

“Do you have your dad’s number?”

“I got that memorized, but not other stuff. All my mom’s files are gone.”

“Can you get them back?”

“No, this was Mom’s phone…. I’ll see what I can do when I get home.”

“Right. Any idea where the shelter is?”

“Ah, I think we’re just about there...” She pointed to a sign. “… the entrance to the bomb shelter should be just about that way.”

We strolled past the sign, looking for a possible entrance. Still a lot of debris, nothing that looked like an entrance to a bomb shelter. A half-broken wall, some crashed and burning cars, more of the urban deconstruction art style…

One of the cars was moving – or rather, being pushed – in our direction. Probably to unclog the street.

“Oh, hey,” I pointed to the car, “I think there’s someone there.”

Anne’s eyes went wide – and then she dived behind the wall.

I turned.

The car had been moved, all right. But not by someone – by something.

The alien was at least eight feet tall, with a fat lizard-like face, covered in what looked like metal armour, and carried a large, bulky cylinder which screamed ‘gun’. Said cylinder was pointed at the ground, as the alien took me in, seemingly trying to decide whether I was a valid target or not.

So, I did what any logical person would do and charged him.

In fairness, he had a gun, and I didn’t, so running would have gotten me shot – at least in hand to hand he might not be able to use his weapon.

The alien seemed surprised. He was slow raising his weapon, which was the only thing that saved me – by the time it was pointed at me, I had bodyslammed him.

It hurt just as much as running into a metal plate would.

The alien, his gun and I all toppled over. Fortunately, we landed with the alien on the ground and me on top. I grabbed at his throat. Figured a humanoid alien would have a neck like humans? And a windpipe?

The alien was desperately trying to hold on to his weapon with one hand and fend me off with the other.

DING!

QUEST ALERT: KILL A SARNAK IN CLOSE COMBAT!

THE SARNAK ARE THE FOOT SOLDIERS OF THE HIERARCHY, STRONG, TOUGH, USUALLY EQUIPPED WITH HEAVY COMBAT ARMOR AND PORTABLE PLASMA WEAPONS. NOT A TARGET FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. EXCEPTIONALLY CAPABLE, THEY CAN ONLY BE DEFEATED BY THE FINEST WARRIORS.

WHILE THEIR BODIES ARE STRONG AND THEY HAVE VERY FEW WEAK POINTS, THE EYES ARE AN EFFECTIVE TARGET, AS SARNAK ARE HEAVILY SIGHT-ORIENTED.

REWARD: +500 XP.

For once, the letters seemed to have useful information.

I went for the Sarnak’s eyes.

The alien made a weird, high pitched noise, as I pushed my fingers in. Tissue pulped beneath my fingers. Squishy….

It grabbed my hands roughly and yanked them away from its eyes.

Then it kicked me.

The force of the kick sent me flying into the air. Dramatic sounding. It also broke something in my chest. Probably my ribs.

Then I landed on the ground, and the impact seemed to smash something in my back as well.

Maybe my back’s broken? I thought.

Well, at least it would be a brave way to die – gunned down by alien invaders while defending your fellow man. As opposed to gunned down while running from alien invaders.

Hopefully Anne had managed to get away.

Wait…. How was I still alive?

The alien was running around in circles, clutching its eyes. Purple fluid was running down its face.

It’s blinded, I thought. The alien couldn’t kill me if it couldn’t see me.

Though it might be able to hear me.

I searched around frantically for a weapon. The alien still had its large cylindrical gun, which was dangling from a strap around its shoulder. But for the moment it couldn’t see.

How to kill an alien which is currently blinded….

A weapon. A knife? A spear? Anything?

My hand touched something. A hubcap.

I grabbed it and rushed towards the alien.

Swung the hubcap towards the knees. The alien tripped, fell.

The hubcap made a crunchy sound as it slammed into the alien’s forehead.

I slammed it down again.

Whack.

A high-pitched trilling. Still alive.

Whack.

Can’t let it get up.

Whack.

Could get its guns again, roast us both.

Whack.

Whackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhackwhack.........

Someone’s shaking me. Anne. “It’s over,” she says. “It’s dead.”

I look at the Sarnak.

The alien’s head was ... deformed. Purple blood oozed from various crevices. Bits of what seems to be bone protruded from a face that looked like it was smashed in with a rock.

Or a hubcap.

The alien’s body was still.

Ding!

QUEST COMPLETED: KILL A SARNAK IN CLOSE COMBAT.

+500 XP.

BONUS FOR DEFEATING AN ENEMY MORE THAN 10 LEVELS GREATER THAN YOU: 50%

+250 XP.

YOU HAVE LEVELLED UP! NOW LEVEL 2.

I swiped the notifications away.

Then I leaned over and vomited.