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free-for-all match.
    “Go easy on me, guys,” Chloe laughed as her vest was activated by a male employee. “I have no clue what I’m doing.”
    “We’ll team up against Robbie,” I joked.
    “Fine with me,” he said and then darted into the smoky room without further warning, leaving Chloe and I behind.
    “You’ll know you’ve been hit when your vest lights up and starts beeping,” the man who’d been helping Chloe explained once she’d been strapped into her vest and handed a gun. “For that time, your gun won’t work and you can’t be shot again. But after fifteen seconds, the lights will turn off and you’ll be back in play. We keep score out here. You guys have twenty minutes starting from when your friend ran inside. Have fun!”
    “Sounds easy enough.” She adjusted her vest and then smiled over at me. “See you inside!”
    And then she was gone. I waited a moment, turning my laser gun over in my hands, and then, when I was certain I’d given her enough time, rushed into the room.
    It was hard to see anything, but I could already hear the sounds of rapid laser-fire. That had to be Robbie. A distant “Dammit!” from Chloe a moment later confirmed it, and I laughed loudly as I ducked around a corner and saw her standing in one of the open areas, her vest flashing and beeping wildly. She spun around, free hand on her hip and poised to chastise me for laughing at her, but I ducked behind the wall again as Robbie fired at me from somewhere in the open space.
    “Run, Chloe!” I reminded her.
    “Oh. Yeah. Thanks!”
    Robbie chuckled as her footsteps faded. He sounded close. I peered around the wall again, keeping my torso and vest behind the wall, and squinted through the smoke. A shadow caught my eye near a short wall less than twenty feet away, and I mashed the trigger of my gun several times until Robbie’s vest lit up. He murmured a curse and hurried away.
    We continued like that for a while. Our laser tag match essentially became a competitive hunt for Chloe, who basically ran around like a chicken with her head cut off, vest flashing wildly during her fifteen-second cool downs. Occasionally Robbie and I would shoot at each other once Chloe had been hit and had wandered away from us, but that was rare.
    I was sure our time would be up soon after my tenth hit on Chloe and third on Robbie, and I was also relatively sure I was in the lead by exactly two shots. The winner got a fifty percent refund on their entry fee, so I was somewhat invested in beating Robbie.
    He got a hit on Chloe while I was hiding in one of the corner bases, and I watched her come barreling in my direction, red lights flashing everywhere. I kept an eye out for Robbie behind her, gun poised, but he played it smart, probably guessing that I’d be looking for him to follow Chloe’s beacon of red lights. I tried to mentally count up hits in my head, double-checking the scores. He was one down now, so as long as I kept a low profile and he didn’t hunt down Chloe again, I was pretty sure I had the win.
    I was kind of proud of the stunt I pulled next.
    Chloe’s lights stopped flashing at last, and I listened to the sound of her footsteps as she came closer, hiding safely in my little base again. And then I heard a second set of footsteps, quieter and smoother, coming from the opposite direction. Robbie’d doubled back around, and she was going to run straight into him any second now.
    A voice came over the intercom in the room to announce, “One minute left, guys,” and I used the opportunity to dart out, snatch Chloe by the arm just before she hurried by, and yank her into the corner with me. She stumbled into me, crushing me against the wall, and I winced as I heard her start firing wildly. The feedback from the intercom covered up her first few shots, but I wasn’t totally confident we’d escaped Robbie’s detection.
    “Stop it!” I hissed, grabbing her arm and yanking it up into the air. She twisted around so that