Trainee Superhero (Book One) (5 page)

The pod bounces and rolls wildly, but there
are no alarms. My ride is terrifying, uncomfortable and completely
unglamorous, which sums up my life as a trainee superhero so far.
My bulky suit of power armor is tight around my chest, but I don’t
have time to wonder if that’s a problem before something cracks
loudly behind me, and the pod drops suddenly. The lights all start
flashing red, and the pod spits me into the sky.

It’s superhero time!

I fall awkwardly, spinning in the air until I
find some kind of balance. My suit is a dead weight without power
or movement. There are no lights in my helmet or on my gloves but
surely, surely they wouldn’t just drop me out of the sky without
something to stop me.

Right?

I tumble clumsily through the air, falling
head over heels.

“Help!”

I scream until my throat hurts, but I get no
answer. I fall through a thin layer of clouds and see the ground
racing towards me. The city of Perth was beautiful once, but now
it’s a wasteland of ruined buildings and deserted streets filled
with rusting cars. I can see black streaks and craters where the
first missiles hit, and a huge flat area that looks like glass off
to one side of the city. There are trees – mostly dead – and open
areas that may have once been parks. There can be no doubt that
this is a corpse of a city.

I wonder what the radiation count is around
here, and then I wonder if I’ll live long enough for that to be a
problem. It looks like the ground will get me first.

My helmet beeps and my suit whirs into life
as the lights on my gloves start glowing. My body jerks so that I
am falling with my feet to the ground and my fall slows. I look up
to see a parachute above me. Thank you, unknown technician in
charge of parachutes, at least now I won’t arrive as a pancake.

I scan the ground for a good landing place,
but there aren’t many in the clutter and rubble of this ruined
city. It doesn’t matter, really, because I don’t know how to
control my descent. I can see movement below that must be the
aliens, but I can’t see the saucers. I’m still a few hundred meters
high, and I don’t know where to land, or even how to land.

My parachute cords cut and I drop with a
lurch.

“Saucer!” I swear.

The ground is getting bigger every second and
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it. I don’t know how to
fly these suits, and I don’t have time to learn.

“Help!”

A bright light flashes by my shoulder and a
superhero appears. I don’t recognize him, but I’ve never been
happier to see anyone in my life. The superhero reaches out and
grabs my arm, moving us until we are face to face, falling
together. I can see into his visor; he seems to be shouting at me,
but I can’t hear him.

“…Hold on, kid,” I hear faintly over my
radio.

The world twists and jumps so that I am no
longer high in the sky but now only seconds from hitting a
skyscraper. I panic and lose hold of the superhero beside me just
as he teleports away, and I am alone again. I slam into the side of
the skyscraper and into a concrete pillar. The building starts to
collapse around me, and I scramble through a rain of glass shards
and metal hail. My shield crackles and bursts as I fight my way
through to an elevator shaft, force it open and drop through. I
catch the cable on my way down and use it to slow my fall.

I reach the lobby and exit the building as it
crumbles around me. I should have been dead, but I’m not. I shake
myself free. I’m… fine, surprisingly.

But I’m also alone again.

“Hello?”

The roads around me are lined with dead trees
and abandoned cars. The buildings around me are tall and mostly
still intact, but their windows are dirty. There is no immediate
danger, and the adrenaline rush I felt during my fall is draining
out of my body. My legs start shaking uncontrollably, so I drop to
my knees and force my visor open. I take a breath of musty air,
remember where I am and slam the visor down.

“This is crazy!” I scream.

Something moves in my peripheral vision. I
spin and find myself facing a scout ball. We look at each other for
a second in a strange standoff but I shoot first, a green spark of
light that hits the scout right in its center mass. The walker’s
laser hits the building behind me, burning through concrete. The
scout topples over onto the ground and falls still. It’s my first
kill, but I’m shaking too hard to enjoy it.

I walk over to investigate my fallen foe,
stepping over its legs to look at its ruptured head. I’ve never
seen a saucer creature so close before, but I’ve read enough to
know what to expect. The whole body is a mess of tubes and metal
flakes, with no sign of flesh or computer circuitry as we
understand them. The aliens have been termed organo-bots by our
leading scientists, but we still have little idea of how they
work.

A faint voice mutters over my radio, and I
look up to the sky. Nothing. Apparently the saucers block the Super
Corps radios in much the same way as they bock civilian
signals.

I feel a blaze of heat across my back and
turn to see a second walker bearing down at me. I shoot out again,
and hit it right between where it should have had eyes. It goes
down, and I feel pretty good about myself. I think I’m getting the
hang of this.

Then a blast of energy picks me up and throws
me down the street, through a glass wall and into a hotel lobby. I
slide across smooth tiles right into a huge modern art sculpture. I
don’t know what message the artist trying to convey, but he used
solid rock to do it. I hit it head first and it feels like I was
punched in both sides of the head at once.

My shields flicker weakly as if they might
die. What the heck hit me like that?

A purple cubetank bursts into the lobby,
scattering glass everywhere. The cubetank aims its huge cannon at
me as the teleporting super appears in the air behind it. He
empties a pair of plasma at point blank range, melting through the
creature’s thick armor and right into its core. The cube tank
lashes out with lasers, but my rescuer teleports right above it and
kills it with another pair of pistols. It drops to the ground, and
he flies over to me.

“Okay,
Red Five
?” he asks, appearing
genuinely concerned.

His suit is gunmetal grey with signs of wear,
and he’s wearing a ragged red coat made of a light material that
seems to float in the air. I don’t recognize his costume.

“
Red Five
?” he repeats.

“I’m okay,” I say, and I get to my feet.

He grabs my arm and peers at something on
it.

“Your shields are low. We better get out of
here.”

The world flashes and warps as we teleport.
We land on the top of a tower, my savior with a gun in his hand and
me with my stomach in my mouth. I open my visor and throw up, but
the superhero doesn’t seem to notice. He pulls a second pistol out,
a bulky thing with a single barrel. He’s wearing eight or nine of
the big pistols in holsters slung around his waist and chest. They
all look well used.

He flips his visor to talk to me.

“That thing gave you all six barrels.
Frankly, I’m amazed you survived, because most of us wouldn’t have.
My name is-”

A pair of small pyramids with wings strafes
our position. My savior teleports behind them and brings them down
with two accurate shots. He sheaths the pistols and draws a second
pair in like he’s done it a thousand times.

“-is
Bad Day
,” he continues, “
Never
Lies
told me to look after you after she heard about this
stupidity. Is this really your first time in a suit?”

I nod, and
Bad Day
shakes his head in
amazement. I flip open my visor.

“Shouldn’t we keep our visors down for the
radiation?” I ask.

He shrugs, and scans the sky for trouble.

“Radios don’t work near saucers, so keep your
eyes open for signaling flares. We need to keep moving. The others
will be at the marshal point. Feeling ready for another ‘port?”

I’m not, but he grabs my arm anyway and I
close my eyes as the world starts to blur. We have moved to a roof
overlooking a park. The roof is only a few stories off the ground,
and I can see a handful of triclops and scouts pacing through the
dead trees below. My stomach twists again, and I open my helmet but
I don’t throw up.
Bad Day
laughs.

“Teleporting does that to people, so don’t
feel too bad. Now, are you ready to kick some ass? I’ll head down,
you can shoot from here. Set?”

“Set,” I say, although I doubt I can hit
anything from up here. It’s not like the gloves have an aiming
scope or anything like that, so I’ve just been pointing and
hoping.

Bad Day
flickers out of view and
appears behind a triclops for just long enough to melts its head,
then he’s gone again before the other aliens have time to turn. I
shoot down at a second triclops and hit it in the leg as
Bad
Day
takes down a pair of scouts. He moves faster than I can
follow, and the triclops are too slow to keep up with him. I hit a
scout as
Bad Day
takes out the rest with a few well-placed
plasma bolts. I’ve never seen a super fight before, and I’m
impressed. The fight is over in seconds, leaving a pile of dead
aliens on the brown grass.

Bad Day
appears at my side with a
plasma gun in his hand. Its barrel is red hot, so he holsters it
carefully and draws a replacement.

“Get one?”

I nod.

“Good man. Shall we go?”

“I can’t fly yet,” I admit.

“Oh,” he says, looking surprised.

I feel stupid, but he just grabs my arm and
we teleport to the top of an old church spire, then onto a
penthouse balcony and onwards. Each teleport is only a short
distance, but they follow each other quickly. It’s not a
comfortable ride, because he can’t fly well enough to carry me long
distances. We drop and lurch and fall as we move, but I close my
eyes, grit my teeth and hold on as my suit bangs against walls and
rooftops. After a while it stops, and I open my eyes. We are on a
rooftop balcony overlooking a river, and three other superheroes
are beside us.

Firestorm Commando
is here in his
shiny suit, and I try to avoid him. His polished, colorful armor is
classic superhero, but it stands out in this grey and dusty war
zone. The other two superheroes are
One Trick
in a battered
blue suit with a silver helmet, and another trainee in a grey suit
that looks only a little better than mine.
One Trick
flicks
open her helmet and says a few words to
Bad Day
, but I don’t
hear them because I’m too busy staring at the saucer.

It’s an oval the length of three football
fields and stands about six stories high. Technically this size is
classed as a small-medium, but that’s hard to remember when it’s
floating in front of me. It’s huge, with thick shields and dozens
of gun turrets. I can see triclops and other aliens dropping out of
hangars in its side. I have always wondered how superheroes bring
saucers down, and now I’m about to find out.

“What’s the play?” asks
Bad Day
, and I
snap back to attention.

“Distract from here while you and I flank and
bomb?” suggests
One Trick
.

Bad Day
and the other trainee nod and
begin to move, but
Firestorm Commando
orders them down. He
opens his visor and scowls at us.

“We’ll do things my way,” he says. “
Red
Five
and
Blue Twelve
will start firing and draw the
attention here.
Bad Day
and
One Trick
will flank and
bomb from the side while I cover. Set?”

It sounds to me like he just asked me and
another trainee to distract a whole saucer while he hides and the
other two bomb it. That’s not a plan I’m happy with.

“Cover us while the rookies distract the
saucer? You must be joking!” says
One Trick
with a tone
Firestorm Commando
doesn’t like.

Firestorm Commando
touches his glove
and
One Trick
tears at the collar around her throat, falling
to her knees.
Firestorm Commando
doesn’t stop the torture
until
Bad
Day
lifts a gun and places it against
Firestorm’s
helmet.

“Stop that,” he says quietly

Firestorm Commando
laughs as
One
Trick
writhes in pain.

“If I die, all your collars burst,” he says,
“so better do as I say.”

Bad Day
puts a second pistol against
Firestorm Commando
’s head.

“That’s a chance I’ll take,” he says.

I don’t think
Day
is joking.
Firestorm Commando
releases the button, and
One Trick
stops screaming.
Firestorm Commando
takes off into the air,
and
Day
helps
One Trick
up and into the air after
him. The three experienced supers take off, leaving us two rookies
standing on the rooftop. I can hear them arguing as they leave
until
Bad Day
and
One Trick
fall out the sky
together, recover, and continue flying. It’s clear that
Firestorm
is more than happy to use his power of the shock
collars to get his way.

“What a complete and utter twat,” says
Blue Twelve
as soon as they are out of earshot, “I can’t
believe he’s in charge of anything more important than keeping our
armor clean. And that’s a stupid name he has, too.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one who was
thinking that.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

Blue Twelve
has a long rifle over his
shoulder and a pair of knives in his belt. His suit is battered and
dirty, with a long weld down one arm. He sets the rifle on the roof
and sights down it. He’s a serious guy, and he doesn’t seem too
worried by being left alone.