Game Type: Capture the School
When the power cut the Halo match short, eight teenagers carried its rules across the road and turned their empty high school into the map.
By Brendan Keogh
Set Game Rules
ASSAULT: NO (You must capture the enemy's flag and return it to your own base.)
SINGLE FLAG: OFF (Each team will have its own individual flag.)
FLAG MUST RESET: NO (You must return your flag to your own base manually.)
FLAG AT HOME TO SCORE: YES (In order to score, your team's flag must be in its home location.)
CAPTURES TO WIN: 1 (The first team to capture the flag wins.)
The summer breeze stings like ice. The dew on the grass seeps through my T-shirt and even the denim of my jeans. An ant may be crawling up my leg, but I could be imagining it. I swallow a sneeze before it gives away my position and, not for the first time this night, question my loyalty to Blue Team. This cold, moonless night is a far cry from the scorched grass and red dirt of Blood Gulch; this is well beyond my call of duty. Is victory really worth the flu?
The streetlight pushes back the night just enough to render silhouettes of Red Team's two defenders leaning against opposite rugby goalposts. Meanwhile, the subtle incline between where I lie and the highway beyond the chain-link fence is enough to hide me in shadow. The orange glow of a cigarette flickers like a pinprick in my vision. That would be Ryan—defending out of apathy, not loyalty. The shadow flapping lazily between them is my target: the red flag.
I'm sure Ryan, too, would rather be back at Blood Gulch, crouched beside the teleporter, shotgun ready for another cheap kill; or parked up the mountain behind Red Base in the Scorpion tank, raining ordnance hell on our base from across the map. Earlier this night, we were all discharged from the Blood Gulch conflict with an abrupt black screen. When the power left my parents' house, our Halo system link party went with it. The Capture the Flag match was in its fifth hour and tied 2-2—next capture would have won. We were eight teenage boys full of caffeine and sugar, no electricity, and no clear winner. Across the road stood our high school, St Joseph's College, abandoned and insignificant for the summer months. Open fields, mazes of corridors, patchworks of architecture, ditches and hills—the ultimate multiplayer map. The battle was not yet over.
We agreed on a set of rules, modeled as closely on the Blood Gulch conflict as the real world would allow. We scavenged the laundry for some torches, a broom, a mop, and two beach towels (Snoopy's kennel for the red flag; Soundwave the Decepticon for the blue). We crept out the back door, dashed across the street, scaled the chain-link fence, and went back to school to finish the fight.
