Doc gestured to Mitch, who answered for them. “Well, let me think about it.”

Surprised, Simon looked at Mitch to his left. Partially concealed behind a stack of crates was a weapons rack, with science fictional blasters and lasers. That had to be good news, although Simon already carried one.

While walking over to examine the weapons rack, Mitch knocked over the pile of crates. Simon blinked, because Mitch was far from clumsy, and he was pretty sure the other had done it on purpose. One of the crates narrowly missed Simon’s foot. He was about to voice a protest when he noticed that there was no vibration from the floor, and the noise was not quite what his ear expected. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there should have been a little noise leaking through his cheap headphones. If the only sound came from his headphones, the boxes were virtual.

Simon knew they didn’t have much of a choice, but Mitch was certainly pretending they did. “Simon, have you used the Fischer Model 4 blaster before? Feel good with it?”

All the ‘blasters’ and ‘lasers’ were plastic controllers with enough electronics to communicate with the Memory Palace, and maybe a camera to confirm exactly what was being shot. They were toys and Simon had used them before, but he still wasn’t a great shot. He didn’t know where Mitch was going with this though. Was he trying to bluff their opponents? Intimidate them? Psych them out? Since they had no path to victory without fighting this battle, there was no point in confiding in Mitch now.

“I’m OK with them. As good as any other.”

When Mitch had finished arming their little group he said to the leader, “Since there are five of us, perhaps three of your number could stand by as witnesses.”

The nasty thing blustered, “There is no honor here. Retreat or prepare to die.”

Mitch said, “Well in that case …”

He suddenly raised his voice to a yell, “Everyone take cover behind the boxes and start shooting!”

For an instant Simon was frozen, but perhaps the others had done this before. They were all quickly prone behind the virtual boxes, and then he managed to imitate them. Through his headset he heard pew pew pew, the sounds of blasters firing. He couldn’t see through the goddam crate he was using for cover though. He tried raising his head just enough to aim, but he was propping himself up off the floor, and didn’t have a hand free to fire.

Finally he struggled up into a crouch. For s split second there was a blinding flash of light in his helmet, and a very loud ‘PEW.’ Then his helmet went black and he heard a mechanical voice, ‘You have suffered a serious head injury. Lie prone until you are given medical aid.’

He didn’t actually have much choice, unless he wanted to trigger the emergency release on his goggles and forfeit. He wasn’t nearly good enough for the tower, was a liability for the whole team. He wondered if they could win anyway despite him. He tried to remember if he had seen or heard any slime aliens die before he had gone down, but he had been focused on his own situation.

He tried to make himself comfortable on the floor for what might have been only a few minutes, but seemed like an eternity. He thought about ignoring the verbal instructions and standing up. If the boxes and the enemies were virtual, then he could stand up just as if he were in an empty room with his eyes closed.

Except for his companions. They could trip over or bump into him, and incur who knows what penalty. Would he sense if anyone were near him? There wasn’t any noise leaking in past his headphones, but they might just be keeping quiet. Perhaps he would sense them somehow, but he had never paid much attention to that and wasn’t sure.

After another eternity he felt a touch on his head. It took him a couple of minutes to figure out what was happening.

He’s putting a fake bandage on my head? Do we get bonus points for realism? They hadn’t back in the days when Simon had been playing regularly, but he thought he had read something about it somewhere.

Then he heard Doc’s voice. He smiled for a moment at the irony of the nickname.

“He should hear us now. Erd, are you OK?”

He could sort of see through his goggles now. They showed an extremely blurry vision of what might have been the inside of the tower, and some bipedal forms that might have been his companions.

He replied, “I hear you but everything is blurry.”

He wondered if he needed to make it clearer that his character was injured and not him, but Doc seemed to understand from the tone of Simon’s voice.

“Can you get up?”

“Sure,” he replied, but as soon as he started to the blurry world began spinning and tilting. He shut his eyes, but an irritating shrieking noise told him he wasn’t allowed to do that.

“Or not.”

If he was still this bad after the ‘first aid’, than maybe he had incapacitated himself. Had he screwed it up for everyone?

He said, “Just leave me here. I’m sure you can win without me slowing you down.”

Doc said, “We’re not doing that.”

It felt nice to hear him say that, but he did want his team to win. In real life if he were abandoned he would presumably get to take off the helmet and wait downstairs. He was about ready for that.

Now Doc said, “Mitch, you have the best back. Help him up.”

To Simon’s embarrassment, Mitch actually got down on the ground and grabbed him by the shoulders. And given the annoying noise that wouldn’t let him close his eyes, he actually needed that help for balance.

They walked around the boxes and the all too realistic corpses oozing black icor onto the flagstones. Simon fleetingly wondered if there would be anything physical there if he tried to touch or kick them, then decided he didn’t want to know.

When they got to the far end Doc said disgustedly, “Hey, more stairs. Seeing as one of our team has become injured in a battle where we were highly outnumbered, what say we take the handicap elevator?”

The deep resonant voice replied, “Alas I cannot. You know why I have imposed these trials on those who think they need to ask me things, and I must treat all parties the same.”

Doc said, “Yeah I get it. You don’t want too many people disturbing your mid afternoon nap.”