Lazer Tag Life

2

"Ok, boys. Do all of you know the rules?" Alex questioned the middle schoolers whose game we had to monitor as he handed them their plastic guns, and set up each of the boy's equipment. After a long, awkward silence, he sighed and repeated the rules for what had to be the fifth times since the party started. "No hitting each other with the guns, no cursing, no food or drinks in the play area, no sprinting, no spitting, and if you feel like you're gonna vomit or," he paused, always hesitating to read this part, "...have explosive diarrhea, just run out."

A couple of snickers and giggles later, Bob and I opened the gates to the play area and set the timer to ten minutes. Alex stayed in character.

"Alright men! Salute!" Surprisingly, no one failed to do what he said. "Now, The Red Tomatoes, and Donald Trump's Toupees, good luck to the both of you!"

"I don't regret letting them choose their own names at all," Nick whispered to me.

I chuckled and ran up to the Control Room. "I'll watch over them. Oh! I totally forgot! What music should I play? The usual?"

The three of them nodded eagerly.

Here, we didn't really have a playlist that we were required to play. Rocky doesn't know anything about music, so she keeps us in charge of the tunes. Lucky for us, and unlucky for our pop-culture obsessed visitors, we kept it real emo.

I witnessed Alex stop in his tracks when he heard the first note to Welcome to the Black Parade.

Nick squealed. "WHEN I WAS. A YOUNG BOY. MY FATHER."

Bob joined in "TOOK ME INTO THE CITY. TO SEE A MARCHING BAND."

Soon, all four of us were singing. "HE SAID, SON WHEN. YOU GROW UP. WILL YOU BE. THE SAVIOR OF THE BROKEN, THE BEATEN AND THE DAMNED."

Most of the kids were watching us through the window, giving us bewildered looks. I'm pretty sure one kid knew what the song was; I saw him smiling and humming along.

Something about Black Parade made all of their adrenaline go through the the roof though. When the drums kicked in, that's when the game really began. Kids were shooting like mad, and each shot was followed by a chorus of negative beeping noises from the vests.

I took out my walkie-talkie, which is probably my favorite part of the job. "Bob!" I yelled through it. "Make sure all of the vests are lit up! And make sure they turn off when they get shot!"

"I have the vest tracker right here, all of them are functioning correctly," Bob reassured me.

I looked out and saw Nick against the glass of the Control Room, furiously trying to put two wires together. "Nick, is everything good?"

Nick jumped up, started by the random voice coming through the walkie-talkie, and it fell out of his pocket. He gasped and scrambled to pick it up. "Yeah, but I thought one of the targets looked weird for a second, and now I'm trying to make it work again."

"Wait..." I swallowed up all of the possible fears and worries I had about what he was going to say next, and acted as calm as I could. "Did you break the wires for the targets?"

"Maybe."

"DUDE!" I hissed loudly. "Do you know that the targets provide half of the light in there?"

Instead of getting an answer to that rhetorical question, I just received a bunch of "sorrys" stringed together.

"Ok, I'll yell at you later. I have to find a way to fix this!" As soon as I said that, the hardcore part of the song came on, as if it was right on cue. I stumbled outside and saw Nick, tears barely escaping his eyes.

"They're gonna die, they're gonna die. They're gonna die because of me!"

"Dude, Nick, chill. It's not your fault this place is thirty years old. Now come on, get your head in the game." I shooed him away and grabbed the two wires, thinking of a way to connect them. Then, an idea! Tape! Rocky always makes us carry a roll of duct tape in our pockets in case of an emergency, so I took it out and sloppily rolled it around one end of the wire.

"We'll carry on, we'll carry on..." I sung along as I held the two pieces across from each other. Praying for a solution, and to not be electrocuted, I jammed them together.

Blink.

"Dude! You did it! And no one got hurt!" I heard Nick chirp behind me.

I turned red, feeling proud of myself. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, I was a little suprised to see Rocky.

"Nice job, Paul. I was watching the whole thing on the security cameras out front." She gave us a big smile, the gap in her front teeth showing. "I think it's safe to say that all four of you deserve a five dollar raise for your teamwork, and just being awesome."

"Really?" I screeched. "You talked it over with your boss?"

"Yep! He says it's all good!"

"That's amazing!...Can I hug you now?"

Rocky laughed. "Go ahead, all of you."

We all ran in and jumped on her. In the middle of our five minute long embrace, the timer went off.

"I'll get them," Alex muttered. He walked to the play area doors. "Ok, you little squirts! Cake time!"

I flinched automatically, preparing myself for the loud yelling that was about to happen. Then, we all felt it. The ground started shaking, and the doors slammed open. All of the children were running out at full speed.

"Run!" I called out.

We all made it to the front, huffing and puffing when we got there.

"Now," Rocky managed to get out between gasps. "Who wants to feed them?"