On a busy California morning, Hayden Panettiere had no trouble deciding which superpower she'd prefer.

"I'd be teleporting," she says. "I'd be at this meeting where I have to be, but then I'd be at a beach somewhere."

Hey, you need an edge when you're a teenager on a hot show. Especially when you're a cheerleader trying to save New York from nuclear destruction.

Panettiere, 17, plays Claire on "Heroes." In the first-season finale tonight, she and her friends try to keep a guy from exploding and destroying the city.

There's time to worry about that later, though. On this morning she was doing a cell-phone interview, while merging lanes in Los Angeles traffic on her way to a meeting with Matthew Wilder, a pop-music writer and producer.

Yes, Panettiere expects to have an album out in August. Her life is busy, and would be busier if she hadn't graduated early from school.

In between, she manages the niceties of adult life.

"Hayden is one of the most welcoming people," says Eric Roberts, a latecomer to the show. "Right away, she said, 'Hi, do you know how long you're going to live?' "

That's a fair question on "Heroes," which features a huge cast and lots of destruction.

In the early weeks, viewers met lots of seemingly unrelated people, each with a power. Claire is a Texas cheerleader who is virtually indestructible.

"She can jump off the highest building," Panettiere says. "She can go through a wood-chipper, and she'd be fine."

Viewers had no idea how or whether these characters would link. Neither did the actors.

"Every week, it's like being in school on the first day," says Roberts, who plays the scheming Thompson. Actors meet new people and get thrust into new situations.

Gradually, Claire and viewers learned the basics: The man known as HRG (horned-rim glasses guy, played by Jack Coleman) is her adoptive father. Her real dad is Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar), a politician from a wealthy family.

Now she's in New York, where she meets Nathan and saved his brother, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia). The bigger job is to prevent that nuclear blast.

Two of the characters, Hiro and Ando, have already leaped five years ahead, seeing a future that is intolerable but not inevitable.

"It's what will happen only if we don't save New York City," Panettiere says.

That will be resolved tonight, setting up new crises for next season. "It'll go on forever," Roberts predicts.

For next season, Panettiere would like Claire to have a boyfriend.

"People want to see her being a normal, teenaged girl," she says. "It's what normal, teenaged girls do. They like boys; they kiss boys."

In her real life, that's Stephen Colletti, 21, one of the sun-splashed guys featured in MTV's reality show "Laguna Beach." They go out on the town sometimes when she has a moment.

A teleporter would be helpful.