Free Loop by Brian Caswell Page A

the worst team in the history of the sport, it really makes no difference where you play. Full-back, right-wing … or left right out!’
    The Stranglers. Amil Chopra had thought up the name.
    Amil didn’t play rugby. He played badminton – really badly too.
    Amil reckoned watching the team run around getting beaten was funny. So funny that everyone on the sideline was choking with laughter.
    Choking … The Stranglers …
    Okay, Amil had a lousy sense of humour, but somehow the name had stuck. And now they wore it like a badge of shame.
    At the Glass Factory
    As soon as Sarah leaves the room, Chad picks up the phone, twists the stubby antenna three turns to the right, then two to the left, and presses the zero.
    The screen turns bright red, which makes him blink as he reads the message:
    MEETNG ARRANGD
B AT ASSMBLY POINT
AT 0200 WTH OTHERS
SHP LEAVES 0205
WILL NOT WAIT
    He looks down at the phone and thinks of Xzaltar, and a smile sneaks slowly over his face.
    At one-thirty in the morning, Sarah hears footsteps outside her room. Then Chad stubs his toe on the cupboard at the top of the stairs, and the next few seconds consist of a whispered monologue which could have been lifted directly from a Quentin Tarantino movie.
    The swearing gradually recedes until finally the front door clicks closed. From her bedroom window Sarah watches him sneaking out of the front gate, then turning left, which can mean only one thing – Sam Greenberg.
    Chad and Sam have been friends since the second day of primary school. Sam is in the Stranglers because no other team would let him play – the same reason most of the boys are in the team.
    Sam’s dad coaches the team – or tries to. It isn’t easy.
    As she watches her brother disappearing around the corner, she can’t let an opportunity like this slip by. She dresses quickly and takes the stairs two at a time, silent in her padded sports socks.
    Closing the front door quietly, she slips on her sneakers and moves out into the cold night air, watching her breath steam out in front of her as she breaks into a jog.
    Inside the old glass factory, the shadows cling around the walls as if they, too, are nervous.
    A hesitant beam of moonlight struggles through the murky skylight in the high roof, falling like a pale spotlight in the centre of the vast open space and making it seem somehow colder. A few candles cast flickering spots of illumination into the gloom of the huge structure, but their feeble light fails to make it above shoulder height, and only serves to give the solid shadows a more sinister presence.
    Sarah watches through the window as the boys begin to arrive. Chad and Sam and the Jackson brothers, Danny and Pete, stand by the wall. Perry Richards is throwing a tennis ball up in the air and trying to catch it as it falls back down out of the darkness. Snitch and Sunil are laughing quietly about something – which probably has something do with some lame computer game.
    The others arrive in ones and twos from all directions, until finally the whole team is assembled.
    Fifteen boys without an ounce of athletic talent between them. Fifteen boys who are tired of being called losers.
    The Lonely Planet Guide
    I watched them through the filthy glass of the window, trying to figure out what they were planning. The old factory was huge and empty, and the space where they were standing was big enough for playing a game of football – or landing a good-sized spaceship.
    Which is exactly what Xzaltar did.
    Standing on the windowsill to get a better view, I watched the boys spreading out around the walls.
    What are you up to?
    The thought had barely formed when suddenly the air began to ripple, then glow red, then a huge silver egg appeared out of nowhere.
    In less than a second it was hovering there in the middle of the factory, hissing and gurgling like a pot of boiling porridge, while the boys just stood there watching it, like it was the most