When Max Englehart was in primary school, he was obsessed with Batman. His love for the man of bats was more than just the generalised adoration for superheroes that a lot of kids embrace. Max wasn't interested in otherworldly beings who could fly, or were part God, or could bend time and dimension. He eschewed the characters who hailed from alien planets, or got bitten by spiders, or were the result of some kind of experiment.

Max wasn't looking for an untouchable hero. He loved Batman precisely because he was fully human. Batman didn't have superpowers. He was just a dude with a bucket load of dogged determination who built himself into the man he wanted to be. Something about that struck a lasting chord with the prepubescent Max, who was hoping against hope that he could will himself into greatness. What that might entail had always been decidedly fuzzy and vague; more like a gut feeling than a crystal-clear goal. The only thing young Max was certain of was that 'great' meant being absolutely nothing like his father.

Then, as now, Quentin Englehart was a businessman (a concept also ripe with fuzziness and lack of clarity) who happened to be the Mayor of Bogge Creek; an upstanding citizen who was a terrible excuse for a parent.

In his public life, Quentin has always operated under a thin veneer of warmth and dignity. In his own home, he is cruel and demanding and cold. Max despises his dad in that bone deep way that is only possible when you've started life hoping to make someone love you, then had those hopes dashed – repeatedly and painfully.

When it finally occurred to Max that there was not a thing that he could do to earn his father's love, Max started paddling strongly in the opposite direction. He got his first tattoo when he was 15. Fittingly, it was a quote from the Batman movie The Dark Knight.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Max told his mates that the tattoo was a tongue-in-cheek nod to his childhood hero. His twin sister Eloise logically assessed that it was a straight up middle finger to their conservative, starch-collared patriarch. In truth, it is a permanent warning from Max to himself. A warning to not be complacent. Because nothing petrifies Max more than the idea that he might wake up one day and discover that he has turned into Quentin.

He would rather rot.

Max hates his father, but he adores his sister. In Eloise, Max recognises what few other people do – that she is destined for greatness without even having to will it.

Watching his twin shank Ms Black with a pencil, Max hadn't been the slightest bit concerned for Eloise's safety. Not because he didn't recognise how mind-blowingly dangerous the situation was, but purely because his faith in Eloise is absolute. Between a homicidal alien lizard and Eloise Englehart, Max will back his sister. Every. Single. Time.

Harriet Pimpleton is another story. For all her 'to do' lists and tendency to take charge, Harriet generally acts before she thinks things through to their logical conclusion. The flame ball that terminated the Year 12 welcome barbeque is a case in point. Let's face it, no one with any real sense of self-preservation lights a match in order to test whether or not they've left the gas on.

Harriet is a danger to herself and anyone with eyebrows.

Which is the only reason why, upon hearing the explosions, Max's first instinct had been to protect Harriet and not his sister.

At least, that's what Max keeps telling himself.

"Maximus Englehart, are you even listening to me?" Sissy Maguire is cross.

"Of course I am," Max assures her, turning away from the window and his view of the dying Town Hall. He gives Sissy his A-grade grin – the one that gets him out of trouble and into trouble with equal levels of success.

In truth, Max has heard very little of what Sissy has said during her ten-minute explanatory monologue. He knows that there was a lot of stuff in there about aliens and the fate of the Universe. He assumes that it also included something about why he is receiving random text messages addressed to 'Agent 22'. But Max hasn't been listening, not really. He's too traumatised by the wholly unwelcome realisation that he is ridiculously attracted to Harriet Pimpleton.

In fact, at the exact moment that Eloise was harnessing her inner assassin, Max had been having a very serious talk to his penis about the fact that jumping to attention for his sister's annoying best friend is all shades of not on.

Granted, Max hasn't had sex since he ended things with Tiff Mueller before Christmas. But Harriet? Honestly, that shit isn't even the slightest bit funny.

"Max," Eloise whispers, frowning at him. "You should pay attention to this."

"As I was saying," Sissy continues, shooting Max a pointed look. "The bombs are just the beginning. Now that The Bleak know that I'm here, they'll send a Kill Squad – probably more than one. We must get to the spacecraft before they find me."

"Hang on. Rewind," Max says, finally giving the conversation his full attention. "Let me get this straight. Ms Black's alien lizard friends blew up half the town looking for you. Ms Black tried to kill you but failed, so now more of her friends are on their way to try to kill you again. Like, you specifically?"

"Yes," Sissy says, the small frown on her face indicating that she doesn't have a clue where Max is going with his recap.

"Look Sissy," Max continues. "I don't mean to sound callous. I'm sure you're a really nice person.  Of course, we'd probably have more evidence of that if you'd actually bothered to talk to any of us, you know, ever. Anyway, I'm sure you're great and don't deserve to be assassinated by lizards or anything. But why exactly is it up to us to follow you into certain alien-induced death on the way to your, umm, spacecraft?"

"Ah der," Sissy says, echoing the foolproof and timeless argument used by teenagers all over the Universe.

"Sorry, Sissy." Max's reply is firm. "I'm going to need something a bit more convincing than 'Ah der'."

"Typical," Harriet snaps, glaring at Max as she shoves a rogue ginger curl out of her eye. "Max Englehart is too busy being rebellious and broody to actually help another human being. What a freaking surprise."

"Actually, I'm not human," Sissy helpfully points out. "None of us are."

"Pardon?" Max, Harriet, and Eloise demand in unison. Freddie looks less surprised.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that bit?" Sissy is haughty in her knowing. "In a nutshell. I'm an alien princess, known as The Life Spark, essential to the survival of pretty much everything. You lot are my alien bodyguards – my Life Squad."

"We aren't human?" Eloise queries, looking like she might be about to vomit again.

"Look," Sissy tosses her blonde hair impatiently. "We really don't have time for all this 'explain every little detail to me, please Sissy' malarkey. By my estimation, we have about 12 minutes until the Kill Squad gets here."

"Actually, more like eight," Freddie gently corrects her.

"Don't encourage her princess-complex Freddo," Max pleads.

"It's not that dude," Freddie tells him. "It's just that Sissy's right. If we don't get out of here now, we're going to be in serious trouble. All of us."

"How do you know that Freddie?" Eloise sounds like she's trying to decide something.

"I see things." Freddie shrugs. As far as evidence goes, it isn't all that compelling. But Max, Eloise and Harriet take Freddie at face value. Freddie is their friend. They trust him. More than that, they understand that he's always just sort of known stuff; seen things. They just hadn't realised that the 'stuff' stretched to alien invasions.

"Okay, mate," Max says. While dying to protect Sissy Maguire doesn't seem like the best idea ever, neither does staying put and dying anyway. Looking to his sister and Harriet for confirmation that they are on board, Max squeezes Freddie's shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

With that, Max, Freddie, Eloise and Harriet leave the room. Not one of them stops to check that Sissy is with them.

She is.

Sissy Maguire is many things. Stupid is not one of them. Recognising that her Life Squad have heard just about as much from her as they can handle for now, she reverts to on-brand silence for the walk from the science building to the gym.

No one else says anything either.

They are silent as they cross the outdoor basketball courts; mute as they round the building past Freddie's spectacular Eucalypt mural; wordless as they follow Sissy into the storage room that holds all the outdoor sports equipment. But when Sissy pushes a button that reveals an elevator hidden behind a solid brick wall, silence no longer feels appropriate.

"What the actual fuck is this?" Max exclaims.

"Seriously, Max, could you try and keep the f-bombs to a minimum," Harriet growls at the same time that Sissy says "We need supplies and this is the entrance to your squad's primary storage room."

"Of course it is." Max ignores Harriet's killjoy reprimand and follows the others into the elevator. He's starting to feel dizzy and wonders vaguely if he might be in shock. Aliens. Kill Squads. Life Squads. Something called The Bleak that sounds, well, bleak. Secret elevators just hanging around behind the high jump mats. Max likes to think that he's an easy-going, go-with-the-flow, devil-may-care kind of guy. But this is all a bit too much to take on a Monday afternoon.

"Are you okay?" Eloise whispers quietly, taking Max's hand.

Max nods, grateful for her concern. That's Eloise to a tee, always attune to the slightest change in his mood. Always there for him, except when she's with Harriet, which is, unfortunately, most of the time.

The elevator car is small and rather dark. Once the doors close, the dim lights cast a greenish hue across its occupants, making Max and his classmates look every bit the aliens that Sissy claims them to be.

Max can't focus on that thought for very long without feeling a bit wobbly. Finding out that you are an intergalactic bodyguard is one thing, finding out that you aren't even the species you thought you were is a whole other level of mind boggling. Max isn't really up for it. Like, at all.

Couldn't he just be Batman?

The car continues its descent for a ridiculously long time, before doing the impossible and starting to travel backwards. Max knows that they are going backwards because the sensation is exactly like being in a backward-facing seat on the bus – horrible. He wants to turn to face the other way but Harriet is right behind him. The last thing he needs right now is to be looking at Harriet Pimpleton's full lips; or smelling her jasmine perfume and green tea shampoo. Nothing good can come of that. Absolutely nothing.

Just as Max is beginning to think that he'll be the second Englehart twin to vomit in less than an hour, the elevator car rises quickly before coming to a shuddering halt.

"Holy shit," Harriet says as they all exit. Considering the grief she just gave him for swearing, Max is sorely tempted to call her on her hypocrisy. The problem is, 'Holy shit' is about the only reasonable way to sum up the bunker they've just entered.

A study in concrete and fluorescent lighting, the closest it comes to soft furnishings is the sparring area set up in one corner of its massive expanse. The corner diagonally opposite houses what looks like a state-of-the-art laboratory. The remaining corners are devoted to vehicle storage (motorbikes, SUVs, and, you know, a tank), and row upon row of metal shelving and locker style storage cabinets. The whole thing smacks of 'military compound'.

Still dressed in their maroon and French navy school uniforms, with matching expressions that hover somewhere between shock and awe, the Life Spark and her Life Squad make like statues and stand there. None of them says anything for several minutes. Even Sissy, who until this moment seemed to have the whole 'aliens are coming to kill me' concept firmly in pompous hand, looks lost.

It's Freddie who finally breaks the silence. "Sissy, maybe you should show us to our lockers?"

"Yes, of course," Sissy says, snapping back into conceited control. "The lockers."

"Have you been here before?" Eloise asks with interest, as Sissy leads the way across the bunker floor.

"Apparently," Sissy shrugs. "But I don't remember it," she admits.

"How do you know where these lockers are, then?" Max asks.

"It was in the download," she tells him in a tone that adds 'you moron' to the end of her sentence without any need for actual words.

"The download?" Max queries. He's never really been put off by other people thinking he's a moron – a lot of the time he actively courts it.

Sissy sighs heavily. "You really weren't listening to a thing I said back in the science lab, were you?"

Max shrugs, neither confirming nor denying.

Sissy's groan is long-suffering. "We all received activation text messages. When I looked at mine, a galaxy's worth of information downloaded into my neocortex. The same thing should have happened to you lot. It didn't."

Her tone implies that the failure to download was squarely due to user error. Max has never really turned his mind to Sissy Maguire before today. He's quickly realising that he's not a fan.

Sissy comes to a stop before a bank of tall, double-doored lockers. "Englehart, Englehart, Pimpleton, Eldritch." She points out lockers in turn, and Max, Eloise, Harriet and Freddie move accordingly.

"Agent 2.3, Harriet Pimpleton, Maker." Sounding puzzled, Harriet reads the nameplate on her locker aloud. The others take it in turns to do the same.

"Agent 2.1, Eloise Englehart, Killer."

"Agent 2.4, Frederic Eldritch, Seer."

"Agent 2.2, Maximus Englehart, Flyer."

A horrifying possibility suddenly occurs to Max. "Sissy." He tries to sound casual. "Exactly who is meant to pilot your spacecraft?"

"Ah der," Sissy replies, rolling her eyes with patronising disdain. "What do you think a Flyer does?"

Fuck.

There are few things in life that truly terrify Max Englehart. Flying is one of them.