Paintball vs. S.W.A.T.
by Escher
Before I start into the story, I would like to state that I would have dearly loved to supply photos for the story. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we were playing against the SWAT, who were using this as a training environment, we were not allowed photographic equipment of any kind. Some of the pictures would have been good, but such is not to be. Live with it.
The “adventure” started out when Ben, who ran the local paintball games, called me up and asked if I wanted to play paintball...at night. Intrigued, I told him that I would, and that a friend, James by name, who had asked about paintball before would as well. Ben told me that the local SWAT team was using paintball in training and were in need of someone with whom they could train. To protect the innocent, I’m not going to tell the city where this was, because while the SWAT guys had fun, their training supervisor was...vexed to say the least.
The SWAT team was a bunch of really good guys. I just want to say that up front before I get into the story too far. They really made only one mistake. See, James and I were both experienced role-players, and the SWAT training let us decide what we wanted to do. In the first scenario, they told the three of us — Ben, myself, and James — that a police car had been driving through a neighborhood and had been fired upon from a house. That was it. Oh yeah, they said we had to restrict ourselves to the 2nd floor of this house. No biggie.
Briefly, I want to describe the layout of the 2nd floor. Imagine a backwards L as the hallway. At the base of the L were the stairs that the SWAT would have to climb. There were two rooms off of the hallway at the base as well. At the crook of the L, there was another room, with a bathroom going to the side once inside the room. And as the L went up to the top, there were two more rooms off to the left and one at the very top.
Ben positioned himself in one of the rooms at the base of the L and decided that he would be the “roll-over” of the group of three desperadoes. He would distract them while James and I picked them off. James came up with the idea that he was a hardened criminal who had been to prison twice already, and would not go back again for the mandatory life sentence. We set him up behind a desk in the middle part of the L, just about 20 feet past the corner. My idea was, well, somewhat more offbeat: I was a psychopath, plain and simple. I positioned myself at the corner in the room with the bathroom in it, giving myself a clear view of the stairway. Remember this — it will play an integral part later on in the story.
The most tedious part of the exercise was waiting for the SWAT team to arrive on the 2nd floor. They spent 45-60 minutes just clearing the first floor. But we soon knew when they arrived.
Ben spotted their lead guy first and started screaming for them to save him from us, James and I, who had brought him into a life of crime. Two SWAT members immediately pounced upon Ben, handcuffed him, and were trying to convince him to tell them where we were located by placing their knees into the small of his back. I peeked out from my room, the door slightly open, and saw a SWAT member standing in the stairwell, looking in at Ben crying and moaning. Taking careful aim, I squeezed off a shot, and received satisfaction as it hit his left shoulder, totally ignoring the Kevlar vest he wore. Oh, didn’t I mention the Kevlar? If any of our shots hit the Kevlar, it didn’t count as a “kill.” And I had hit his shoulder. Say goodnight. He turned towards me, looked at the paint, muttered several choice words and dropped to the floor. As I ducked back behind the door, pandemonium erupted as they realized they had a man down. Cries of “Where is he?!” and “Get a medic here!” added to the realistic training environment. Ben added to the confusion by yelling that we were going to try to kill him now because he had ratted on us, and began to struggle. After waiting for the proper amount of noise to ensue, I peeked out from the door again and saw two SWAT members standing there — one just a little inside the doorway of one of the rooms, and the other just rounding the stairway and looking at the now frantically writhing and screaming Ben. Chuckling evilly, I popped off two shots at each, received the gratification of seeing one shot catch a guy right in the face mask and the other guy catch the hit on his underarm as he reached for the door. The one I had hit in the facemask paused, briefly, before he dropped to the floor to make a famous gesture at me and shake his head. I thought the chaos was bad before. It was nothing as to that which was going on now. Three SWAT team members down in less than five minutes? Unheard of!
They frog-marched Ben down the stairs quickly, but then allowed him to come back up to watch and observe, since his “bad-guy” was gone. Two SWAT members poked their heads out of the doorway at the base of the L, and immediately came under heavy fire from James, ensconced behind the desk. Quickly ducking back behind the door, they yelled for backup. James was laying down a cover fire that John Wayne would have been proud of, and I knew that had I stuck my head or gun out to help him, I would have been caught in the crossfire. Suddenly, one of the SWAT team got in a lucky shot that ricocheted off of the desk and hit James in the head. James, honestly stunned, shook his head, realized he had been hit, and dropped like a pole-axed steer behind the desk. The SWAT members, now numbering three, fired off a couple dozen more shots, and seeing no return fire, made a mad dash down the hallway towards the desk. As they passed my door, I was caught by surprise by their speed, and fumbling with my gun, fired off about six shots or so, but since they were approaching the speed of light as they went past, I missed completely. The three SWAT members rushed the desk; one of them jumped to the top of it and, taking his pistol, delivered a coup-de-grace to James’ torso.
They were quite content with themselves now, convinced that James had been the one that had taken down three of their team. Too content. I couldn’t allow them to rejoice too long, now could I? Poking my head and gun around the corner, I saw the one still standing on top of the desk and the other two on each side. Deciding that I didn’t want to take the time to aim, I sprayed off about eight shots towards them. The one on top of the desk got hit in both legs and one of the others got hit in the back of the head. The other one I missed completely. As I was ducking back into my room, now chuckling again, I saw another SWAT member coming up the stairs. I though, “Oh great...he’s got me dead to rights. There’s nothing I can do.” Instead, he just stared at me. Realizing my salvation instantly, I waved at him cheerily and disappeared back into the bathroom.
The SWAT members’ shouting picked up now. They knew where I was. They were elated. I was trapped. Two of them picked up an old door that was off of its hinges and blocked up the bathroom entrance before I could stop them by virtue of paintballs. Once the entryway was sealed, they immediately began telling me to surrender or I wouldn’t leave the building alive. Well, they also threw in some other choice comments, but I’ll leave those out, since they were mainly slurs against my genetic parents and all. Deciding that now was the time to break my silence, I answered their catcalls with my own comments. “No!!! I’ll never surrender!!! I can’t!! The voices won’t let me!!!! They tell me...they tell me that I must kill you...KILL YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!” For a few brief seconds, there was silence outside, broken up quickly by laughter and giggles.
After the laughing subsided, I heard them outside discussing amongst themselves how next to handle the rather precarious situation. Yes. I was trapped. Yes. I was outnumbered. But the fact that I had taken down four of their team members and wounded another one was wreaking havoc upon their psyches. With malicious forethought they began discussing how they could take me down. Among the points of conversation were flash-bang grenades, tear gas grenades and shooting through the wall with a heavy caliber machine gun. Yes indeed boys and girls, subtlety and tact had been thrown out the window. They were...well, peeved. And being the understanding individual I am, I was working with them on how they wanted to go about it. But, as said before, they were upset and decided to throw tactics out the window.
Now, the door that they had placed in front of the bathroom entrance was ramshackle and only covered 75% of the entryway, at best. They got the idea to stick one of the guns (confiscated off the “dead body” of James in the hallway) into an opening and spray the bathroom with paintballs, praying fervently that one would hit me. Such was not to be. For as soon as they stuck the paintball gun into the opening, I “thwacked” the hand with a paintball, eliciting cries of shock from the now wounded SWAT member. Taking their idea and twisting it to my own devious ends, I stuck my gun out the entrance and fired off a couple of shots, and was promptly rewarded by the sounds of paintballs bursting upon boots. One more SWAT member wounded and hauled outside. Things were looking grim for the good guys. We traded shots through the entryway once or twice more, but to little effect. Suddenly, a hand appeared at the bottom of the entryway, holding a pistol (yes, the same that had coup-de-graced James) and fired once. Success for the home team, boys and girls. It hit me square in the center of mass...sternum shot. Realizing what was called for, I smacked my back into the wall, slid down to the floor and laid there quietly. There were more shots shortly, but all above me. They didn’t realize they had hit me. One minute, two minutes, three passed. Hearing no return fire from me, they became bold, threw the door away and burst into the bathroom. Seeing my still form lying slumped against the wall, paintgun still near, they immediately decided to ensure my death and non-recovery by “painting” my entire body. After the smoke cleared, I had four head wounds, and my torso and legs were effectively Swiss cheese.
As I exited from the room, wiping my mask off, I heard their trainer raking them over the coals, literally. It wasn’t a pleasant discussion that was going on, and to avoid any feelings of guilt as they looked at me (The Evil One), Ben, James and I quickly exited, stage right.
Now, they decided to enact one more scenario. You’d think they would have learned not to give us such immense leeway in deciding the situation, but they hadn’t. They decided that James and I were to be the “culprits” and Ben could be an advisor. Sounds good right? Well, the only thing they told James and I was that there were three bodies on the front lawn of the house. Again, they left the decision of what had happened up to us. James and I, feeling slightly penitent for our (read that MY) actions in the first scenario, decided to go easy on them this time. As we took our places on the first floor of the house, we began our fiendish plotting. We came to the conclusion that James (now named Bubba for Scenario Two) and I (aptly codenamed Junior) were brothers. We were blind drunk and armed with hunting rifles. The three civilians on the front lawn had been family who had tried to take away our beer. Bad decision, hombre — kinfolk or not.
We placed ourselves down at the end of a loooooong corridor (approximately 20 yards) and awaited the arrival of the SWAT. Upon their arrival, they, in accordance with regulations, demanded our immediate surrender. James and I began having our fun with them. We cursed and insulted them at times, and asked them if they had any alcohol for us at others. We had decided that if they said they had some beer, we would have surrendered. A man’s got to have his priorities right? Well, it didn’t work out quite that way. Both James and I were firing...well, like drunks. Random shots down the hallway right? No hopes of hitting anything right? I mean, they were so clearly illuminated by the porch light that we could see them poking their heads around the corner. Paintballs went careening down the hallway at random intervals and SWAT members went diving behind the corners. “Bubba” and “Junior” were having a high time. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. One of “Bubba’s” wild shots tagged a SWAT member right between the eyes, painting his goggles a nice fluorescent green. Outraged cries rang out from the SWAT team and “Bubba” and I giggled at the chaos we had caused. Suddenly, “Junior” got the bright idea to step out from behind the corner where he had emplaced himself so that he could fire off a shot. Unfortunately, “Junior” had forgotten about the SWAT sniper stationed down at the end of the corridor. One shot rang out, making a nice splat two inches above “Junior’s” bellybutton. Adding to the realism, and now having a high time, I stumbled backwards and moaned out “Oh no Bubba!! Ohhhh Bubba, they done gone and gut-shot me Bubba.” Completing my Oscar-winning performance, I dropped to the floor, unconscious.
I heard James sigh and mutter “Oh great. Now I get to do something REALLY stupid.” “Bubba” screamed down the corridor at the SWAT “You done gone and killed my little brother Junior!! I’m gonna kill you!!!” Numerous shots rang out as “Bubba” sprayed the general direction of the SWAT team, hitting nothing, and fazing the sniper not one bit. The sniper, calm and cool, fired once, tagging James in the collarbone with the paintball, which didn’t break. James, feeling the impact, dropped to the floor. All I heard was the sound of a solid thwump as James hit the floor.
The SWAT team, suspicious of the sudden silence, advanced down the corridor slowly. We’re talking molasses in winter slow here. Forty-five minutes worth of slow later, they announced that they had “thrown” a flash-bang where we were. Okay. Not a problem. “Bubba” was dead and “Junior” was fading quickly from a gut-shot.
The first member of the team came up on James, lying spread eagled on the floor. Seeing no paint, he kept his gun pointed at him and asked, “Are you dead?” James said that he was and that it had apparently not broken. (As an aside, James found the paintball and kept it as a memento.)
Suddenly, SWAT member two saw my crumpled form lying behind some trash, and recognizing me as The Evil One from Scenario One, yelled out, “There he is!!” Suddenly, I was, once again, a magnet for paintballs. Impact after impact shook me as three SWAT members opened up on my “unconscious” form. Needless to say, “Junior” was sped on to the afterlife. Lesson learned? SWAT members find it difficult to distinguish between scenarios. To them, I was still Sociopath Bill.
All in all, even though we (read that ME) had caused them some consternation in the First Scenario, we had fun. The trainer never did call Ben back, causing me to apologize to Ben profusely. I had had fun. James had had fun. As had Ben. And so had the SWAT guys. Only the trainer was bummed...uhhmm, well, maybe bummed is too tame of a word.
And I’m still trying to convince other SWAT teams that they need to try this. Trust me.