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“Is this your first visit to the Dream Shop?” the stewardess asked the lads.

“It is, yes,” answered Kel for all four of them.

“Do you have a particular situation in mind? A concert, maybe?” the stewardess asked, eyeing their evening wear worriedly. Though her punters had often wanted to play in rock concerts, the demographic this outlet catered to had never produced a demand for classical music, or anything else that required black tie.

“We want to fight together,” Hawk replied animatedly.

“Realistic, co-op, armed combat,” added Seg. “What kind of environments do you have?”

She got slightly more worried. “You don't look very prepared for a combat sim. I have to inform you that there is a slight risk involved…” She indicated a discreet sign on the wall.

Hawk pooh-poohed it. “We decided to make it a little bit more interesting. It's no fun without some risk. Besides, we can handle it: we play enough shooters over the internet.” Their nervous excitement was not entirely because it was their first time. They already knew that despite the safeguards there was one particular area of risk. Individually they might have chosen something less involved than a combat simulation for their first experience, but they'd egged each other on.

The stewardess escorted them through to the main room. It was long and narrow, with the pods lined up against the two long walls. Movable screens separated groups of pods. She conducted them through to a group of four. Each pod contained a soft, sloping couch in a flexible, odour-proof plastic. She invited the lads to take a pod each, and moved to the control station between them.

As she set up the system for a realistic combat simulation, the stewardess explained that the scenario was not so much in the computer as it was in them, like a dream. The computer would merely allow them to share the same dream. Complex arbitration rules and a system of psychological feedback and suggestion would make sure that all the dreamers' experiences were consistent. A huge pre-programmed bank of props, characters, costumes, and locations supplemented the users' own imaginations. Even lucid dreaming was possible in this playground of the mind: stoners, artists, and intimate friends often made use of this fact to experiment with situations not possible in the waking world. But for this game the friends chose to have the computer enforce rules approximating the real world.

The stewardess started the machine and watched the four pods close, covering each man from the feet to the torso. The neural interfaces automatically aligned with their skulls, and started to synchronise with their brains.

The landscape around them was at once alien and magnificent. Rolling hills lined the horizon, green and covered with angular blue trees. They held up a purple sky whose single cloud was indefinably unearthly. The whole scene was lit by a red sun just starting to clear the tops of the distant trees. A few kilometres away in the opposite direction sprawled what could only be a military encampment.

Hawk was the first to speak. “Look at this: I have the coolest weapon imaginable.” He excitedly showed them the massive shotgun he'd found he was holding. “Pity it only holds 12 shells, though. I hate games where you have to reload by hand.”

“This one doesn't need reloading,” countered Griz, holding up his fusion-powered Gatling laser. “Wait; how did I know that? How did you know yours does?”

Seg was sniffing lungfuls of the fresh air that surrounded them, noting how much more real it made their surroundings feel. He spoke up next. “Mate, I clearly have the best weapon. The assault rifle is the best all-rounder, for rate of fire, clip size, and effective range.” Hawk looked over at him, and for the first time noticed that his clothes had changed. In fact, it wasn't that he hadn't noticed before: he hadn't perceived the costumes at all until now, as they had only just been fully imagined by the players and shared among them. That the system worked at all was thanks to the bizarre property of dreams that they allowed it to take such shortcuts.

“Brutal armour, man.” He pointed back to Seg, who was wearing a lightweight flak jacket, a helmet, and shoulder and knee armour, all khaki. “Protected but mobile, unlike Griz.” Griz had heavy, studded armour, painted aircraft grey. Together with his huge Gatling it would make it hard for him to keep up. “What about you, Kel?”

Kel was dressed from helmet to boots in reactive camouflage material. He carried an implausibly long rifle, which, judging from the size of the telescopic sight, could only be for sniping. Ignoring Hawk's question, he answered Griz's. “The same way we know the aliens in that base are our enemies. The same way you know anything in a dream. You just know.”

“Later, Kel. I've just realised how vulnerable we are out in the open. Come on, lads, eyes open, and over to that ridge.” Hawk pointed. “It's defensible and gives us a good view of the objective.” As they moved into cover, Kel spoke to him quietly.

“I remember the last time we all went swimming, pal, and those are not your muscles.” Hawk, alone of them all, was sparsely garbed. For a shirt he had a light jerkin that left his flanks and arms completely bare to reveal a rounded physique. His trousers were baggy pantaloons. On his hands he wore tight, short-fingered gloves with spiked knuckles. All four items were emblazoned with a lurid flame design, as was his shotgun. “Neither is that get-up subtle.”

Hawk shrugged. “I wouldn't wear it to the shops, that's for sure, but it's ideal for this. I feel strong, powerful.”

“No wonder, looking like Conan the Barbarian on disco night. But I see your point; my kit makes me feel sneaky, invisible, silent. Have you noticed we each have exactly the weapons and equipment we like to play with?

“Yeah, what's with that, anyway?”

Griz cut in. “It's because it's a dream, right? So do we get anything we wish for?”

“No,” answered Seg. “The system enforces the rules. It lets you choose how to play, but it won't do anything that breaks the game. That's why Hawk's shotgun only holds 12 shells, and your Gatling and armour are so heavy. It's trying to make the game fair.”

“Quiet,” interrupted Kel. He slung his rifle on his back and drew the machine pistol he carried as a secondary weapon. “We have incoming.”

He was right. No sooner had they found cover than they came under fire from an enemy patrol. This first attack was not heavy, just enough to get their blood pumping and let them get used to their weapons. The game went on.

Over the course of the next hour, they fought through tunnels with enemies behind every corner, conducted sniper warfare from hilltops, and charged tanks they intuitively knew how to drive through treacherous terrain under a heavy artillery barrage. The game saw fit to split them up once or twice, but never for too long, for they played as a team. As they progressed, the plot progressed with them, adding new twists and objectives.

Hawk rounded the last corner into the room that held the secret map, and stopped short as he faced down one of the alien foot soldiers hiding behind the doorway. Without stopping to think, he gave it a chestful of shot. Its blaster fired as it fell to the floor but only succeeded in scorching the ceiling and leaving the smell of burning in Hawk's nostrils.

“That's the last of them,” Hawk reported. “Griz, secure the perimeter. Kel, take that knot-hole and see if you can pick anyone off.” He turned to Seg and flexed his left arm, by now glistening with sweat and streaked with alien dirt, as he was all over, mostly visibly. “Sheesh,” he added, “By the time we're finished I really will have muscles like this.”

“No, you won't,” contended Seg. “Don't forget that your real body hasn't moved since we started the game, so— get down!” So shouting, he fired a burst of five rounds into the alien who'd been about to cut off Hawk's head. The first one went through the head, killing it instantaneously. As Seg overcompensated for the recoil, the second went lower, into the chest armour that had saved it from Hawk's shotgun. The third and fourth went straight through the damaged armour, spattering Hawk with yellowish blood. It was the fifth that intercepted Hawk's dive and nicked his left biceps before embedding itself in the alien's thigh.

Hawk yelped in pain as he hit the floor. “You looby, you shot me!”

Seg stepped over him and kicked the fallen alien soundly. “It's really dead this time. Kel, get your nose out of that knot-hole and watch the door, while I—” He stopped as he caught a movement in the doorway, raised his rifle to fire again. It was Griz, running in, Gatling raised and charged. This time, no one fired.

“I heard shots and came to— Hawk! Are you injured?”

“No,” he answered through gritted teeth. “I'm lying here in agony for a game.” Kel resisted the urge to point out his statement's lack of irony.

“Back to the front, Griz, and keep your eyes open,” ordered Seg. “Now, let's see to this. Could you lift off your hand so I can take a peek?”

Hawk complied, releasing the blood that had pooled under his hand, which ran down his arm, mingling with the sweat and with the yellow blood of the alien to give the appearance of a macabre salad dressing. Seg gulped down a lump in his throat. None of the games they'd played had this kind of detail. “It's alright, it's only a scratch.” Gingerly he tore a strip off Hawk's sash and used it to bandage the wound, keeping pressure on it with his hand until the bleeding stopped.

“I know it's only a sim, my arm isn't really damaged. So why does it hurt so much?”

“Pain is just a stimulus, like any other. The game feeds your pain the same way it feeds your vision, hearing, and other senses. As far as your nervous system is concerned, your arm really is injured.”

Kel spoke. “That's why you have to be as careful in here as you are normally.” He looked at Seg. “Friendly fire isn't. We could have all killed each other just then.”

Seg gave an embarrassed grin. “Sorry, bud.” He aimed a friendly dig at Hawk's arm; checked himself before reaching him, realising, and dug him in the right arm instead. “Come on, we've got to use this map to cross the minefield.”

A few objectives later, they were to locate and retrieve an ammunition crate to resupply them for the final assault.

“That's it,” said Seg. He pointed towards the middle of the swamp. A small protuberance was just visible above the mud. “It has to be it.”

“It could just be a log,” argued Griz.

“There's no trees anywhere around here,” countered Seg. “It has to be the crate, which means one of us will have to go in and get it.”

“Not me.” Griz was the first to recuse. “You don't think I could wade that in this armour, do you?”

“Remember Thirlmere?” suggested Hawk mischievously.

“Ye— no, no way am I skinny-dipping in mud on a hostile alien planet, chum; no way. Why not you?”

Hawk grinned again. “Looks like fun, actually, but I don't think I'd be able to shift that crate with my arm in this state. Kel?”

“My camo won't survive being caked with mud; besides, on this open ground you'll want me to keep an eye out for enemy snipers.”

All heads turned towards Seg, who started fidgeting. “No. Really. Look at me: not keen.”

Hawk spoke gently. “If this was a game a bit of mess wouldn't slow you down. You'd be the first one to that crate.”

“It is a game.”

Hawk pointed to the crate. “Go on then.”

Reluctantly Seg handed Hawk his assault rifle, and started to wade into the swamp. He could feel the mud squirming its way in through the tops of his boots, squelching under his light armour, soaking his clothes. It was tugging at him, making his movement sluggish. Soon he was up to his waist in the foul ooze. He was nearly at the crate.

“Seg,” shouted Kel, “Get down!” As a gamer, Seg was used to reacting fast to such advice. He dove forward, ducking his head into the mud.

Kel took up firing position, searching for the enemy sniper in his scope. The fool had made the schoolboy error of allowing himself to be silhouetted topping the brow of a hill, but was already in position to fire on Seg as soon as he lifted his head. Kel had to hurry. A slight haze over a rock caught his eye, and tracing the outline, he could see it was reactive camouflage like his own. Controlling his breath, he gently tightened his trigger finger. The enemy camouflage flickered as it went off, damaged by the shot that was apparently fatal. Kel kept his crosshairs on the body and called to Seg that it was safe.

From under the swamp's surface, Seg didn't hear Kel, but he was out of breath anyway. Raising his head again, he spluttered as he inhaled some slime that had got into his mouth. Now saturated, he waded the last few metres to the crate. Though it was reasonably light, it took all his strength to lift it from the grasping mud.

A few minutes later he was standing dripping at the edge of the swamp, his face and hair caked with mud and his sodden uniform clinging to him. Though the friends had been reluctant to wade in, they were willing enough to get their hands dirty to open the crate and restock their supplies. After a pause for Seg to empty his boots and helmet, and wring out his shirt, they trudged on, now towards their final objective.

The game's last chapter was spectacular. As they penetrated the alien base, a host of enemies appeared from every hiding place, every tunnel, every outhouse. They faced alien infantry, machine-gun nests, troopers mounted on fast hoverbikes, and heavily armoured mechs. They fought through them all to reach their final target, the alien command centre, and destroy it. Now they had to reach the landing pad to rendezvous with their ship and make their escape. It was suspiciously quiet as they retraced their steps through the encampment, carefully stepping between the corpses.

They reached the door of the hangar. There was a wide, open space between them and the landing pad. But alien reinforcements had arrived and were quickly taking up covered positions surrounding them.

“To that thing over there,” pointed Hawk. “It's close enough to the pad, and we'll be able to hold it until the drop-ship arrives. I'll go first to clear it out, then Kel, then Seg, then Griz. Plenty of covering fire.” He reloaded his shotgun.

“You're forgetting that we don't have hero shields,” argued Seg, but it was too late. Moving quickly just as the aliens opened fire on their position, Hawk made a dash for the indicated fortification. He reached it in time to give a faceful of shot to an enemy trooper who was trying to duck into it, then another to a second following behind. Hiding behind the fortification, he found a box of grenades and sent one towards a small crane that some aliens were using as cover. He waved to Kel to join him, and he too dashed across the gap, reactive camouflage engaged. When he had arrived and started taking pot-shots to keep the enemies' heads down, Seg joined them. Hawk signalled to Griz to follow.

“Don't forget he can't run as fast in that heavy armour,” warned Seg.

“Yeah, but that armour'll take a few rounds without falling apart,” answered Hawk.

More and more aliens were arriving each moment, and Griz was pinned down by increasingly heavy fire. An explosion ruptured the tarmac, alerting them that the aliens had set up a mortar. Griz was scared to move out, but he had little choice, as a platoon had entered the hangar from the other end and was almost upon him.

“Stay there, you pansy, I'm coming for you,” called Hawk, but Kel held him back.

“You'll get cut to ribbons out there,” he said. “Remember, you still have to be careful.”

“Do something about that mortar,” ordered Hawk; “Seg, keep up your covering fire.” He loped across the open ground. As he did so, Griz let off a final salvo with his Gatling laser before breaking cover himself. Kel waited for the mortar operator to duck between shells, and hastily lined up on him. Hawk saw that Griz had set off and started to turn around and head back. The mortar went off as Kel fired his rifle, but the jolt made him miss, hitting the legs of the mortar, fortuitously knocking it out of action. The mortar round hit the ground just where Griz was about to step.

He could feel the heat, the shockwave of the explosion; he was deafened and stunned by the sound as he felt his armour crack and shatter around him. Although he intellectually knew the explosion was not real, was the product of computers and nerve stimulation, his autonomic brain knew he was dead. As they had all been warned, the system could not tell he was dying and disconnect him until it was already too late, too late to save him from his own brain's last reaction to the fatal lies it had been fed.

Griz's body exploded graphically, showering Hawk with gore as he skidded to a halt nearby.

A moment passed in silence, as the survivors realised the real danger they were in. It might have felt like a game before, but now, they were a man down, and it would be that much harder for those remaining to avoid sharing his fate.

Hawk was first to the smoking pile of crimson-stained fragments that had been Griz's armour. Dropping his shotgun, he plucked the Gatling laser from where it fell and turned to face the now advancing horde. Giving the roar of a wounded lion, he opened fire, cutting swathes of burning death through the enemy charge. The other two caught on and took his flanks, Seg using the assault rifle to pick off stragglers, and Kel using his machine pistol and then Hawk's discarded shotgun to deal with any who got too close. Shoulder to shoulder they stood their ground and fought the aliens to a standstill.

The landscape around them was at once magnificent and desolate. Corpses, all but one of them alien, lined the ground beneath them as the three triumphant survivors ran the last fifty metres to the landing pad. The whole scene was lit by a red sun that was now being blotted out by the drop-ship on its way to pick them up, bound for home. A few kilometres away in the opposite direction they could see the ridge, their starting point mere hours before. They arrived at the ship, tired, mucky, and aching, but victorious.

They returned to consciousness, still high on adrenalin, whooping and grunting at their victory. Then, two by two their eyes alighted on the empty pod that Griz had been in. Already the last stains of his death had been rinsed away by the automatic cleaning system, leaving it fresh and ready for the next customer.

Each man realised that easily could have been him, and there was a subdued pause. But it wasn't them: they had played the game and won.

Hawk was the first to start laughing, mercilessly and uncontrollably. Kel and Seg followed his gaze and, seeing its target, joined in.

Griz had emerged embarrassedly from behind the screen. “You bastards let me get killed! I'm going to have to go home like this now.” He got no sympathy from the others, even if they could have stopped laughing long enough to give it.

“What was dying like?” asked Kel once he could speak.

“Like dying in a dream. I knew it was coming, felt the explosion, and then I woke up with a jolt. But it took longer to wake up than it does in a dream, and that must be what causes it.” He looked down at himself, and then back up at Kel. He lowered his voice confidentially. “I could feel it happening.”

They faced the mild derision of the stewardess, split the bill, and then chased out into the night, already elaborating the sagas they would tell of their adventure. Behind the counter, they again passed the notice, the understated one in a plain typeface. Next to the terms and conditions, and the disclaimers of liability, it was a simple reminder: “If you die in the game, you wet your pants in real life.”