Just Beaming

FULLERTON — After shooting his buddy in the back, 15-year-old Kallum Huskey grinned.

“I got you!” he told 18-year-old Caster Williams, gloating over the kill.

Normally, kids shooting other kids is fodder for furrow-browed pundits lamenting the end of society. But in Fullerton, it’s just good, clean fun.

With a new entertainment center called Laser Quest opening its doors Friday--following a week of wildly popular sneak previews that drew 2,500 potential customers--local parents should prepare themselves for the spectacle of kids getting the drop on each other, then giggling as they pull the trigger.

Of course, the weapons they aim are harmless laser guns, and the “kill” causes absolutely no sensation in the victim, other than a slight tingle of shame. Still, it all looks terrifyingly real, and the adrenaline coursing through the veins of those players--who ranged in age Thursday from 12 to 57--was palpable.

“It’s, like, fast-paced!” said a breathless Akachi Azubuike, a student at Fullerton High School, after 15 heart-pounding minutes in the Laser Quest arena.

An 8,000-square-foot gothic maze, the arena is filled with theatrical fog and lighted by ultraviolet lamps that make the ultra-violent players glow like nuclear fallout. The game itself is nothing more than a techno update of tag, with a high-tech price tag to match. For $7, players get to briefly experience warfare in the 21st or 22nd century. Roaming the dark arena, peering around blind corners and walls, they compete against as many as 29 other laser-armed opponents, all seeking the same futuristic thrill. Points are earned for every hit scored, deducted for every hit incurred.

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It feels like this. Turn a blind corner and--shoop!--you’re face to face with a waiting enemy’s beam. Descend a ramp and--zap!--three enemies fire razor-thin red beams at your chest. Blink and you look like a red porcupine, with countless lasers sticking into your glow-in-the-dark T-shirt. (Really hard-core players know to wear all black.)

Befitting all the best kids’ entertainment, death means nothing.

“Unlimited shots, unlimited lives,” explains Laser Quest’s area manager Jeff Thirlwall, who supervises Laser Quest centers throughout California.

A central computer showed that Williams, the hapless victim of Huskey, fired 1,200 shots in his 15 minutes, scoring only 3% of the time. In turn, he was shot several dozen times by disloyal friends and unseen strangers.

Untroubled by his ineptness, Williams declared: “There’s a lot of action. You can get all hot and sweaty.”

“It’s the place to be,” Azubuike agreed.

There are 45 Laser Quests in North America, Thirlwall said, and more than 100 centers worldwide. (The game was invented nine years ago in Manchester, England, but the Toronto-based company is now in roughly 17 different countries.)

Because the Fullerton center represents the company’s first foray into the greater Los Angeles area, Thirlwall has been keeping close tabs on community reaction. So far so good, he said, surveying the long lines. As of Friday, the center, at 229 E. Orangethorpe Ave., will be open seven days a week.

“It’s been as busy as I’ve ever seen it anywhere,” Thirlwall shouted above the excited din of teens screaming for their turn in the arena.

Despite the high cost of the game--relative to a teenager’s tight budget--Thirlwall says Laser Quest can be addictive. “I’ve seen kids play 600 times in a year,” he said.

And not just kids are playing. Corporate teams and church groups find the game a diverting way to forge trust and bust stress.

“It’s like entering a video game,” Thirlwall said. “It’s a stealth sort of thing. It’s air-conditioned in there, but you’ll come out with sweat on you.”