The danger doesn’t end when a saucer goes down. The danger doesn’t end when the superhero teams track down the last wounded triclops and blast it into dust.

No, the danger only ends when every alien is destroyed, and sometimes that takes weeks. The bigger creatures are easy to find, but the lesser creatures often go to ground in areas surrounded by civilians. They may be smaller, damaged, or dysfunctional, but they are still dangerous. It still takes a superhero to bring them down safely, a superhero like me. I know those of us who specialize in the cleanup work are looked down on by the other superhero teams, but what we do saves lives.

And it isn’t easy.

I do a lot of my killing in public places, so I have to keep a low profile. My work requires stealth and accuracy, not the raw power required for open battle. I’m not a soldier, I’m a hunter: a meticulous, patient, relentless hunter.

You have never heard of me, which just shows how good I am at my job. I’m always active, never seen.

I’ve fought the saucers’ lesser creations on the roofs of malls while you shop below. I’ve made kills in the sewers below your favorite restaurant, fought in the park where you walk your dog, followed my quarry through the place your parents take their car to get serviced. I may have been in your house, tracking down that last metal serpent hiding amongst your family memorabilia. If I do my job well – and I always do – you won’t even notice the burn marks.

I’m the one who gets called for all the hardest hunts.

I once killed a scout bomb at the White House while the president was giving a speech on the lawns. If you check the footage carefully you might see a blur on the roof when the president starts talking about how safe the Super Corps has made the world.

That was me.

And I hunt alone.

I’ve been chasing a wounded octo-ape for the last three days. It’s a dangerous beast, and fast, but it’s not yet ready to fight again. Its current priority – as far as we can tell – is to hide and repair itself. Many of the saucers’ creations simply fight and die without regard for their own safety, but a few are more careful.

More intelligent? I can’t say. More difficult to deal with? That I know for sure.

I am trying to chase the octo-ape out of the city, but it is an elusive creature. It spent last night doubling back through the city, attempting to find a place to hide during the day, and I lost its trail for a few hours. We have been playing this game for too long, and I am tired. I’ve only had six hours’ sleep since this hunt started, and I ran out of food yesterday. This kind of work is better suited for two people, but I have yet to meet another person I can trust not to screw up.

Do you think I’m being too harsh? You could ask the opinion of the families of the eighty-three people who died when my last partner got sloppy. His mistake was taking a lunch break when the ghostwalker we were tracking decided to go on a rampage. That’s how fine the line is between success and disaster in this line of work.

My stomach rumbles at the thought of food. I should be eating lunch right now, but there is no time. I have to keep searching for this ape before it’s ready to start fighting again.

“Anything?” says a voice in my helmet.

I don’t reply out loud – too noisy – but I click the No button on my gloves.

Radios don’t work when the saucers are around, but that’s not a problem for me. I have a team of assistants who use satellites and local CCTV to keep an eye out on the area. They do good work, but it’s not the same as having help on the ground.

“You must be hungry,” says another of my assistants, “can we organize food for you? Pizza delivery like last time?”

The pizza guy is paid to drop his delivery on a park bench and I take it from there. He has no idea where I am, and neither does my quarry. It normally works fine, but I have a bad feeling that this ape is about to make a move.

No, I signal.

“Sure? You must be hungry?”

I push the Shush button I had installed for situations like this.

“Your call. We haven’t picked up anything here, so you may as well take a break. Or we can send you the next list of likely hideouts in your area?”

Yes.

“Okay, we are sending them to your GPS now.”

Even superheroes need a GPS when they are in the city. I check the list of targets and my heart sinks: one of the targets is a high school. It would have been quiet last night, and I bet it has lots of places to hide. I get a bad feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with being hungry. I start flying, jumping from roof to roof while the people below me continue their lives without noticing me.

No one sees me; there are reasons I was chosen for this job.

“The school?” asks one of the voices on my radio.

“The school,” confirms the other, “there should be about a thousand students there. I’ll start the evacuation protocol.”

The rules are that we don’t evacuate buildings until I see my quarry. It's not my rule, but has been put in place by the Super Corps to prevent undue panic.

“This is just a gut feeling, right?” asks my radio.

Yes.

“So you could be wrong?”

No.

“Ah. This is not good.”

No.

The school looks like any other: green fields, older buildings, students everywhere. The only thing that makes this school unusual is the massive hole in its roof.

Likely, I send.

“Um… okay. Get a confirmed sighting and we will start the evac.”

I don't enter the roof through the hole; that is the fastest way, but not the best. I fly into the school through its main doors, drifting along corridors and rising through stairways. I’m just a ghost in the corridors, unnoticed as I find my way to the attic.

The attic is enormous and cluttered. Dusty boxes of old textbooks make cardboard columns that tower precariously over old gym equipment. Old posters and murals line the walls, and the whole place smells of damp paper. The only light I can see is coming in from the hole in the ceiling, and it casts deep shadows in every shape. I am surrounded by hiding places. The light is too bright for my night vision; the shadows too dark for my normal eyes. I have my huge silenced pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. My pistol only holds six bullets, but I also carry a plasma shotgun for if things get messy and loud. I’ve only had to use it three times, and each time it saved my life.

“And?” my radio asks.

Uncertain, I signal.

“Okay but–”

Shush, I send.

Something moves in the shadows and I swing my gun towards it. It’s just a cat. I freeze in place until the little feline walks past. It stops and turns its head to me, smelling the air below my feet and wrinkling its nose in puzzled thought. I wait for it to pass, but it sits and stares up at me.

This is not good; the octo-ape might realize I’m here.

I have to keep moving. The cat keeps track of me. I fly over a wall of boxes to lose it, but find myself in a part of the attic with dozens of wind chimes hanging from the roof. My shoulder catches one of them and it rings out once. I freeze in place and curse my clumsiness; people have died for less.

The cat meows loudly and the octo-ape explodes from its hiding place amongst the boxes. It charges right at me with three of its arms outstretched. I shoot it twice in the leg and bury my knife in its side as I twist away. It lands awkwardly and I shoot it again in the back of its head until it’s dead.

I breathe out slowly and reload my gun. I pull my knife out of the octo-ape’s chest.

The cat walks over to investigate the noise. It doesn’t look alarmed, merely surprised. Our little skirmish has knocked over some of the boxes, but otherwise there is no damage.

Killed, I send to my team.

I know I could talk to them now, but silence is a hard habit to break.

“What? You didn’t even let us evacuate–”

“We aren’t picking up any sign that you were noticed,” interrupts my other assistant, “so it looks like a clean job.”

Yes.

Although that cat almost got me killed.

The cat keeps me company until night falls. We guard the octo-ape’s body until the world outside falls silent. A Comet should be arriving soon for the pickup. It is all standard recovery work, really.

“We have a massive energy surge in your area,” says my radio, and then the transmission begins to crackle and die.

I race to a hole in the roof as a ball of flames bursts from a cloud and flies down to the school. It’s Dark Fire. I knew he wasn’t as dead as the Super Corps claimed, but I’m still surprised to see him here. His flames simmer back and die out, and he hovers in the air over the field. I don’t know why I bother being so careful if other superheroes are going to do as they like, but that’s life. I must admit that I’m curious to meet the legendary Dark Fire, so I fly down to join him, lifting my cloaking field as I go.

He’s shorter than I expected; his suit is as wide as he is tall.

“I thought I might find you here. Good hunting?” he asks.

I shrug.

“Your team does important work, and I heard you are the best of them.”

I nod; I know all this, but I’m surprised someone like Dark Fire was paying any attention to the less glamorous side of superheroing.

“So… I heard you have been working alone for some time now. Do you prefer it?”

I give him another of my trademark shrugs; working alone is not really a choice. My past partners have lacked the patience to stalk for days on end, and lacked the precision to make a kill in silence.

I notice the hint of a silvery shape in the air beside Dark Fire, a faint outline of what might be a human. I’m not in the mood for games, so I draw my gun and point it at the shape. I don’t shoot, but I consider it.

“Ah,” says Dark Fire in surprise, “I should have known you would see through his cloaking. I want you to meet someone. This is Free Man.”

The outline grows strong, thickens, and becomes a man in a suit. He isn’t wearing the heavy armor that some superheroes generally prefer. If anything, his suit looks lighter than mine. He has two long knives at his side and a huge sniper rifle slung over his back. His helmet is off and I can see that one of his eyes is a cybernetic replacement. I can tell he’s seen action. He looks at me and nods in greeting, but he says nothing.

I like that in a person.

“He’s good enough in a fight,” says Dark Fire, “but he’s a far better hunter than a brawler. I thought he would be better suited to your type of work than mine. What do you think?”

I shrug.

Dark Fire waits for me to say something, but I don’t. Silence is a hard habit to break. He sighs and a flame appears in his hand.

“No-one likes working alone,” he says to the flame, “you just have to find people you can trust. Give him a try, and if it doesn’t work out we have a thirty–day returns policy, no questions asked. Okay?”

I nod. I could use the help, and I can always go back to working alone.

“Good. I can tell that you two anti-social heroes have a lot in common, so I’m sure you’ll get on just fine. Also, I think there is a cat who wants a word with you.”

Dark Fire pulls down his visor and leaps into the air. He flies fast, and I quickly lose track of him in the sky. I turn to see the cat from the attic. I pick it up and it purrs. Looks like I’m making all kinds of new friends today. I turn to my new partner.

“They call me Quiet Killer,” I say.