Free My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord by David Solomons

depths of the precision-molded plastic and saw my own face staring back. At least it looked like me, but I could swear there was something about the face gazing back that was different. Something fluttered behind my reflection’s head. It seemed to be . . . a cape. Had to be some trick of the light. Before I could look again, another face swam out of the gloom. Christopher Talbot stood at my shoulder, enveloping me in a cloud of minty toothpaste and salami sandwich breath.
    â€œCan’t stand these things,” he said, gesturing to the console. “Wouldn’t even have one in the store, except your generation can’t get enough of them. Video games.” He shook his head with displeasure. “Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned game of Red Rover?” He had a misty look in his eye. “Two dozen taunting schoolkids trying to drag down a small child on a concrete playground.” He sighed. “All right then.”
    â€œAll right what?” I asked uncertainly.
    â€œYou’ve got the job,” he said. “No overtime, no 401(k), and you have to provide your own sandwiches.”
    â€œI already brought them,” I said, indicating my backpack.
    â€œCourse you did. Right. I’m off for a nap.” He threw a salute. “Commander, the bridge is yours.” With that he leaned on his cane and hobbled off toward the back of the store.
    As soon as I heard the soft thud of his door shutting, I locked the front door and turned the sign to Closed. I didn’t want to be disturbed (and it wasn’t as if people were lining up to get in). I hurried over to the counter, removed the Xbox from its shelf, set it up in front of the screen, and reached for the game disc. The overhead lights shone through its layers to reveal a gorgeous spiderweb of circuitry under the surface. I’d never seen anything like it. Lab Rat Games must have spent a fortune on the design. I slotted the disc into the machine, and as I waited for the game to load, I unzipped my backpack. In addition to my sandwiches, I’d brought a pair of headphones. The console whirred to life, and I felt myself relax. I slipped on the headphones, and the outside world faded away. This was what I needed. The sure touch of the controller, the instant feedback, the pinpoint control I had over my alien fleet. This is what I could rely on—not Serge, not Lara, not Mom or Dad, and especially not my big brother. As I played I sensed I was not alone. All across town, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were doing the same thing, focused on blasting the dratted Star Guy and his annoying sidekick out of the sky.
    But how to conquer Earth’s last line of defense?
    I ran through precisely what I was up against. Star Guy could fly, breathe in outer space; he had the powers of telekinesis and telepathy, a Star Screen radar, and a force field. He needed starlight to power up, but he could go for days without needing to recharge. And Dark Flutter had . . . pigeons. She wasn’t a threat. No,
he
was the obstacle.
    My mother ship went down in flames. Star Guy’s victory theme blared in my headphones. No matter. I had time. All day, in fact. Mom was at work, and Dad thought I was at Serge’s house. Dad had barely noticed when I slipped out that morning, and he hadn’t questioned my cover story. He was too busy watching endless YouTube clips of old TV shows from his childhood. He does this when he’s feeling old and sad. When Dad got like this he was not easily distracted.
    I restarted the game from the last checkpoint.
    Not easily distracted
. An idea tickled the back of my brain. Perhaps Zack’s greatest power was not one that Zorbon had given him. I thought it through. Zack could sit in the library and study for hours and hours. Not only could he leap tall buildings in a single bound, he could also read a math textbook from cover to cover without moving a muscle. Forget about