“In summary, we remain in ignorance regarding their origin, nature, and purpose the saucers that attack Earth. It has been suggested that they are looking for something, but there is no evidence of what that might be. All we know for certain is that they bring destruction and that the Superhero Corps has been the only viable means of stopping them.”

–Confidential report to the U.N. on the tenth anniversary of the alien attacks.

“The saucers are the biggest threat humanity has ever faced; superheroes are a close second.”

–Extract from Dark Fire’s journal read out at his court-martial

I’m the kind of guy who gets into trouble a lot, but it’s not always my fault. Despite what you may have heard, I only broke the quarterback’s nose because he and his friends were trying to throw me into the dumpster and I didn’t want to go. I was suspended from school for that, but not for long enough. I’ve been in far worse trouble, anyway. When I was twelve, I snuck into my mom’s workshop and electrocuted myself on some of the alien technology she had been working on. I was clinically dead for a whole minute before Mom found me. You would think I would have learnt my lesson from that, but I was back in that lab within a week. Mom had to make a whole new security system to keep me out.

So sometimes trouble finds me and sometimes I find trouble, but in either case I get more than my fair share of problems.

I’m sitting in class and sketching exploding saucers as I wait for the last few minutes of the school day to trickle past. My teacher glares at me, but she knows I can do the work. I mastered the high school math syllabus years ago when Mom was still homeschooling me. Those were better days. The only thing Dad ever taught me is how to cheat at cards. He’s a little bit too good at it, which is why he’s banned from every casino in the country.

Today I’m looking for a special type of trouble: today is my seventeenth birthday, and I have an appointment at the Superhero Corps recruitment office to find out if I have what it takes to be a superhero. The odds are against me but, like my dad, I plan on cheating probability. Let's just say that I found some alien tech in my mom's workshop that will give me an unfair edge. I doubt Mom would have approved, but Dad probably would if he ever found out.

The bell rings and I’m out the door before my fellow students have left their chairs. I’m halfway to freedom when someone grabs my neck and slams me hard against the corridor wall, holding my face against the bricks.

Ouch.

A figure leans against the wall beside me with an air of affected relaxation. It’s James, the quarterback, and he’s brought a few friends.

“I never thanked you for this,” James says, tapping his nose.

It looks better than it had before I broke it, but his father is rich enough to hire the very best plastic surgeons. James nods, and the guy behind me punches me in the back. Both he and James are bigger and heavier than me, and I know I’m in trouble. James smiles and slaps the side of my face.

“I heard you have an interview today... but I don’t think we need scum like you protecting the Earth, do we?”

He’s right, I have an interview today and I can’t afford to show up late or covered in bruises. I can’t miss my chance, not for this. Not for anything.

So I cheat and use one of the little tricks I found in Mom’s workshop. I blink my left eye three times to activate it, and alarms burst out along the corridor. That’s part one of the plan.

“Saucers! Seek cover! Saucers! Seek cover!” the alarms shout.

The goons behind me releases me and run down the corridor, but James isn’t as easily fooled. He grabs my shirt and drags me to the window. Traffic passes slowly by, and a helicopter flies past. The alarms die and I try to break James’s grip.

“How did you do that?” he asks, “that’s illegal!”

He’s right, but then so is beating up classmates. Part one of the plan may not have worked, but part two is bearing down on us. I look down the corridor, but James doesn’t take the bait. He should because my best friend, Tenchi, is sprinting towards us and he does not look pleased. James takes a swing to punch me, but Tenchi grabs his arm and floors him. James hits the ground hard and rolls into a fighting stance, but his shoulders sag when he sees who has come to my rescue.

“Oh, his nursemaid,” James says.

Tenchi’s mother is Japanese so he moves like a ninja and his father is Australian so he hits like a freight train. If that wasn’t enough, he also has black belts in a number of martial arts including a couple that are only semi-legal. James is a big guy, but even he won’t mess with Tenchi. He backs off and I laugh. I want to enjoy this sudden turnaround in my fortunes, but Tenchi grabs my arm and drags me away.

“We have places to be, dude! Can’t be late!”

James scowls but lets us go. Tenchi pushes me through the school car park and into his ancient grey car. The car is so old that it still has a cassette player instead of a real sound system, but we get around that by wiring his phone directly to the speakers. We always have the music up loud, because the rust bucket rattles alarmingly at any speed over a walking pace. It’s only one breakdown away from the junk pile, but we can’t really complain, because new cars are rare these days. Besides, Tenchi regards the faulty brakes and dirty windows as a challenge rather than a problem, and his faded wheels are still the fastest in town.

“I had that under control,” I say, ignoring the fact that I had called him to help.

Tenchi slams on the accelerator and we speed off in a cloud of blue smoke. Tenchi doesn’t say anything about having to rescue me, but he gives me the same knowing smile that he uses whenever he gets me out of trouble.

“Today is important, dude, can’t have you flunking your interview if we are going to be partners!”

Partners. Tenchi has already been accepted into the Superhero Corps next intake, and I have no doubt he will be the best candidate they have ever seen. The only thing holding him back is an epic fear of heights that is going to make flying a bit tricky. Maybe he can just shut his eyes.

“Thanks man!” I say, just like I always do.

We swerve past a cyclist and fly through a traffic light just as it turns red. Tenchi isn’t worried about getting a speeding ticket; the local cops know he’s going to super school so they won’t trouble him. It takes us less than a minute to get from our drab high school to the Superhero Corps Office, a new record. The office is in the most beautiful and expensive part of town overlooking the lake. Usually we couldn’t even afford to park around here, but the Superhero Corps Office has car parks reserved for interviewees, and Tenchi pulls into one at speed.

“Hey, can you see something up there?” he asks, pointing at the sky.

I can’t see anything at first, but I stare until I think I can see a dark speck of color amongst the clouds.

“A plane,” I guess, although big planes are rare these days.

I lose the speck in the sky and turn my eyes back downwards. I take a nervous breath and let it out slowly; this is a big moment for me.

“Wait,” says Tenchi, and he hands me a box wrapped in red paper and delicate silver ribbons. I raise an eyebrow at the fine work.

“Happy birthday, dude! Mom did the ribbons,” he says.

Tenchi’s mom is an origami master, so I tease the ribbons open carefully and put them aside for later. Inside the box is a purple egg that snaps open to reveal a thin polymer leaflet as wide as my hand.

“Whoa!”

It’s a tat-a-gotchi, an animated tattoo that grows and evolves over time. Tat-a-gotchis are expensive, ornamental and totally cool. Lots of supers have them. I slap it on my arm and it embeds into my skin. It stings a little. The tattoo flickers and displays a small purple egg surrounded by a set of controls. The eggs will hatch soon and turn into a unique animated creature that responds to my voice and mood.

“Thanks man, you shouldn’t have!”

For Tenchi’s last birthday I took him out for pizza and a terrible B-grade movie, ‘Mighty Max vs. The Saucers from Hell!’ It was even worse than it sounds, but we enjoyed it. I wanted to get him something better, but it took me months of saving just for the pizza.

“No worries! I have one, too.”

He shows me a glowing turquoise egg on his upper arm. It hasn’t hatched yet, either. We still have a few minutes before my interview, but there’s no point us waiting in the car, so we walk out and stop by the big glass doors that lead into the Superhero Corps Office.

“You’ve got this, right?” asks Tenchi. He looks a little nervous.

“I’ve got this,” I say and smile with more confidence than I feel.

We step forwards. The glass doors slide smoothly aside for us. I’m breathing too fast, and my hands are sticky with sweat, but I try to relax. The surroundings help: the Superhero Corps Office is large, calm and beautiful. The place looks more like a private club than a recruiting office, with comfortable leather chairs set beneath a chandelier. The walls are lined with huge screens in elegant wood frames, each showing collections of pixel-perfect images of superheroes and grainy images of saucers. I’m obsessed with saucers, but I’ve never even seen a good photo of one because their presence disrupts electronics. Plus the aliens tend to kill anyone who gets too close, naturally.

I recognize all of the active and retired superheroes on show. I have the whole collection of superhero posters on the walls of my room from the first team, Earth Shield, to newest team of third-generation superheroes, the Hollywood Nine. I find my favorite poster, the one I have opposite my bed so that it’s the first thing I see every morning. It shows the portraits of a team called The Legends: a team of four superheroes that formed when I was eleven and disbanded when I was thirteen. In those short years they took out more saucers than any team before or since. Their leader, Master Bansuri, was a bald Japanese superhero who had been in the original Earth Shield line-up. He looks old, but his eyes were still bright. On his right is The General, the superhero who now commands the Superhero Corps and the only member of The Legends still active. I’ve always thought he was the coolest of The Legends, and that’s saying something.

The other two members of The Legends were Cold Comet, a beautiful and talented superhero who died in battle, and Dark Fire, who was officially declared dead three years ago but who has unofficially been seen more times than Elvis. Cold Comet is smiling in poster, but Dark Fire looks grim and a little angry. Cold Comet and Dark Fire don’t look like superheroes, but they were two of the best, and if they could do it so could I.

Every day I wake up and look at that poster; it’s got me through some hard times.

“Dude?” asks Tenchi, interrupting my thoughts.

A Superhero Corps Officer is sitting behind a dark desk in the corner. He ignores us, although he interviewed Tenchi and sold me most of my posters. Beside him is a waiting area corner with leather chairs and a coffee machine. Tenchi’s parents are waiting there, and both look worried. I'm glad; they've been like family to me. His tiny mother, Jen, gives us both a hug. She was born in Japan and is responsible for Tenchi's love of all things ninja and robot. His father, Kev, is a tall, heavyset man who spent his youth in rural Australia and has the robust sense of humor to prove it. Tenchi grew up speaking Japanese and swearing like a sailor, a strange combination.

“Ready?” Kev asks.

“I guess,” I say.

“They'll be lucky to have you,” Jen says.

“If they say that you don't have what it takes,” Kev says gruffly, “you tell them to get–”

“–your father...?” Jen interrupts with practiced ease.

“He couldn't make it,” I say quickly, although I'm not sure he even tried.

She gives me a kind smile, the kind I normally hate getting. For once I don't mind.

“I'm sure he wanted to be here, dear,” she says kindly.

“You should come around for dinner tonight,” Kev says, “I'm cooking. Barbeque.”

It's always a barbeque when Kev cooks. The thought of it makes me hungry.

The officer at the desk looks up and pretends he has only just noticed me.

“It's time. Please follow me.”

He leads me to a large interview room with a view over the lake. The room is empty except for a wooden table with chairs on either side. I sit down before my jelly legs betray me, and the officer places a small black box on the table between us. He confirms my name and address in a bored voice, and then we begin.

“Everything discussed during this meeting is considered confidential under the Superhero Corps Laws. Breaking this confidentiality is considered treason under these laws and is punishable by death. Do you agree?”

“Yep.”

“Yes,” he corrects me sternly.

“Yes,” I echo. This man does not have a sense of humor.

“Your mother died in a saucer attack three years ago,” he says.

It's not a question. My mother was famous for her work, and her death was heartbreaking for my father and me. A thousand people died in the attack, so I wasn't alone in my grief. I nod to the officer, but he points at the recorder.

“That's correct,” I say.

He rolls off a list of my sporting achievements and extramural activities, which doesn't take long, and then moves onto my academic achievements. These, at least, are more impressive.

“... and advanced physics,” he finishes.

“Yes.”

“Allergies?” he asks, reading from a list on his computer screen.

“Strawberries.”

“Medical conditions?”

“Mildly asthmatic.”

Those are just the easy questions; everyone gets those. The hard part comes next. He places a red box on the table and my heart misses a beat. This is it; this is the real test. He waves to the box and I place a hand on it. I start up all the chips in my head; it’s now or never. A little blue L.E.D. lights up, but there is no other sign that anything is happening. The officer looks at his computer screen and types a brief note.

Did I do it? Am I in? I'm frantic to find out, but the officer is in no hurry.

“Thank you. We now move on to the second phase of the interview.”

I have no idea what this means, and I sit forward eagerly. The officer, in contrast, is in no hurry to work down his list of questions.

“If offered a position at Superhero Corp, do you agree to waive all rights to freedom of speech, movement and association from the moment you enter the Superhero Corps Training Facility and until further notice?”

“Yes.”

He nods and ticks a box. “Do you agree to medical treatments including–”

“Yes!” I interrupt impatiently.

He holds up a finger in warning and carries on.

“–including, but not limited to: surgical, psychological, neurological, nutritional, physiological, radiation, chemical, hormonal, genetic, cybernetic, infranetic and other interventions not approved by any international body or listed here?”

Wow. What does infranetic even mean?

“Um... yes,” I say, with less confidence than before.

“Thank you,” he says, making a note.

He stands up, looks me in the eyes for the first time and puts out his hand. I shake it, not knowing what it means. He hands me an envelope and smiles.

“Congratulations. These are your joining instructions. You are the town's second trainee this year. There must be something in the water.”

I stand there dumbly for a second.

“You're in,” he explains, “next time we meet I’ll be saluting you.”

I’m going to be a superhero!

The next few minutes are a haze. I walk out, and everyone hugs me. I feel amazing. I’m going to be a superhero.

“Why don't you boys hit the lake for a few hours? Dinner's at six,” Tenchi's mom says.

“Barbeque,” his dad adds proudly.

We have nothing to do but celebrate, so Tenchi and I drive his car to a park on the lake. I’m still shaking a little from the adrenaline as he cranks the stereo and we sit on the hood, enjoying the perfect moment. The lake is an intense spectrum of blue, from the very dark to clear turquoise. There isn't a cloud in the sky, and most of my high school is already splashing in the water. A few kayaks float lazily in the lake. One of them is much further out than the others.

“That’s Stace out there, you know,” Tenchi says with his Cheshire cat grin.

I can’t recognize her from this distance, but he’s probably right. I’m feeling far too good to blush at his teasing. We walk down to the water’s edge with a fair bit of swagger and look out over the gentle waves.

“Best day ever!” Tenchi says, slapping my shoulder.

We are going to be superheroes.

We are going to be SUPERHEROES!

Then the music skips and splutters.

“Just a glitch,” I say, but I pull out my phone to check its status.

Phones are always the first to go during a saucer attack. Mine seems okay, but the reception is way down. Then the song dies, and my phone screen goes dark. We run over to the car and flip the radio to the emergency channel.

“Seek…–elter, seek….shelter!” the radio crackles.

I panic and try to use my dead phone. Tenchi is already moving, climbing onto the shack’s roof.

“SAUCER! SAUCER! SAUCER!” he screams.

People start moving fast, racing out of the water and into their cars. High school cliques and divisions are forgotten as people pile into whatever car they can find. I see James and his friends squeezing two nerds into the back of their overloaded car and waving more people on. Tenchi keeps shouting until he can see that everyone has heard him, and then leaps down to his car.

“We have to wait for Stace,” I yell, and he nods.

She was the furthest kayak from shore, and it feels like forever before she lands beside us and jumps into the car. Everyone else has already left, and the lake is quieter than I’ve ever seen it.

“Hi Stace,” I say, and she gives me a worried smile.

The nearest shelter is across town, which should only be a few minutes away. Tenchi takes the most direct route down the main street, but we are cut off by the ruins of a fallen clock tower.

“Here we go,” he mutters.

A lumbering figure stands on top of the ruins. It’s a triclops, an alien with three arms each ending in a laser cannon. Tenchi makes a handbrake turn as the triclops scours the ground around us. We swerve down a side alley, knocking over trash cans as we flee. The car scrapes along a water pipe but we squeeze through and skid into a broad street lined with tall trees. It had been a beautiful area yesterday, but now most of the trees are on fire and the road is already littered with burning cars and glass.

We start driving, but a car cuts Tenchi off and races down the street.

“No good!” yells Stacey, pointing out another triclops at it leaps off a roof and right into our path.

Tenchi hits the brakes and we slide into a tree. The car that cut us off doesn’t stop in time and runs right into the triclops. There is a bright flash that leaves the car as flat as if it had hit a cliff wall, but the triclops is unscathed.

“Out!” Stacey orders.

There is smoke everywhere. We escape behind the safety of a SUV and hunker down. The triclops turns and walks away, ignoring us but firing at random into shops. Glass shatters and bricks melt beneath its haphazard barrage, so we keep our heads down. I hear glass crashing further down the street as a kid bursts onto the road. She sees the triclops and freezes in panic. The triclops turns towards her, lasers red and ready.

We are too far away to do anything.

James leaps out from behind a tree, grabs the kid and dives back into cover. He moves fast, just not fast enough. The triclops hits the tree, sending James and the girl flying through a cloud of splinters. They land in the street, completely exposed. The girl runs to safety, but James falls over as he tries to stand.

“He’s broken his leg,” whispers Tenchi.

We stare in horror; James looks right at me, and I swear his eyes meet mine. We both know what happens next. James shakes his head in disbelief.

The triclops incinerates him, leaving nothing behind but ashes. Tenchi pulls me aside before we are next, and the building behind us explodes showering us in hot brick and glass. The blast knocks us over, and my ears are ringing as I stand up. Tenchi grabs me, points down the street and says something, but I can’t hear. He shakes his head and points at the ground to where Stace is lying unconscious, then back down the street to where the triclops is heading for us.

“I’ll distract it, you take Stace and run,” says Tenchi.

“Wait!” I protest, but he’s gone.

I throw Stace over my shoulder and I start walking as fast as I can, looking back over my shoulder to make sure Tenchi is okay. I hear lasers firing behind me, and Tenchi yells something that sounds like “faster, dude!” We reach an alley, and I relax enough to look behind me. I can’t see Tenchi. Windows start exploding around us, so I drop Stace and fall to the ground. I’m bleeding pretty badly, but I try to shield her with my body as best as I can. She opens her eyes and smiles a little.

“Stace? Are you okay?”

“Idiot,” she says.

“What? This isn’t my fault.”

“This is the first time you’ve spoken to me all year, and now we are going to die. Idiot!”

Ah. I really am an idiot.

I see a scout ball near us. It’s nothing much more than a laser cannon mounted on two thin legs, but it's more than enough to do us in. I freeze, but it starts walking towards us anyway.

Stace holds my hand and closes her eyes as she passes out.

“Sorry,” I say again, but she doesn’t hear me.

The scout walker explodes in a brilliant flash of white flame. A familiar figure floats over its ruins. It’s The General; we’re saved!

He flies towards me, staying about three feet off the ground. The General taps a button on the side of his helmet and the faceplate folds away revealing an angry face covered in sweat. Wires and metals plates run over his bald skull and back into his green suit. It’s really him, The General, one of the greatest superheroes who ever lived, the man I've always admired, the man who–

“Get to a shelter, idiot!” he snarls, swiping the air with a massive blue sword.

“Huge fan–” I mumble.

My head is a bit foggy. I want to ask for his autograph, but instead I just roll next to Stace and groan. The General's eyes flick over to Stace and then back to me. The look in his eyes makes my whole body freeze.

“What. Are. You. Doing. With. MY DAUGHTER!” he roars, and with each word his sword swipes closer to my face.

“Who–”

He blasts the ground beside me with a blue laser. I can feel the heat and my mind shoots into overdrive. Stace is unconscious, covered in blood and wearing a bikini. I realize that this doesn’t look good for me, but The General doesn't stop to ask questions before he blasts me with blue lightning that rips through my body. I roll away and open my hands.

“It's not what you think–”

A bolt of lightning rips through the air and blasts the wall behind me. I scramble towards Stace; maybe being close to her will keep me safe.

“MY DAUGHTER!” The General screams, flying towards me.

He kicks me in the chest and I feel a rib break as my body lifts off the ground. I moan; my childhood hero is trying to kill me. This can't be happening. A car explodes nearby, showering The General in boiling metal that rolls off his shields. Lightning crackles down his arm and leaps into my body. I spasm and scream, dropping to the ground.

I’m going to die.

A superhero drops from the sky and glides between me and The General. She hovers in an unusual, cross-legged stance as if she were sitting on an invisible flying carpet. I recognize her as Blizzard Master.

“Stop!” she says, but The General blasts me again.

Blizzard Master spreads out her hands and a wall of green ice bursts from the ground in front of me and takes the brunt of The General’s storm. The pain stops, and I breathe again.

Whew.

Something heavy hits the dome; cracks appear. I can't see through the dark ice, but I can hear what sounds like explosions. A single spark sneaks through the cracks and hits me in the chest, dancing painfully across my whole body and throwing me hard against the alley wall. The pain is incredible. My vision starts to fade, my heart stops.

And, for the second time in my life, I die.