Set Phasers to Stun!

Erica Koenig is amped. Armed with a high-tech phaser, she's about to make her first foray into battle. Her code name: "Barbie."

Sirens blare. Copious machine-generated fog descends. The theme from "Mission: Impossible" cranks at mega decibels. Whooping and giggling comrades-in-arms - Barbie's coworkers - disperse from their home base into the misty darkness. Barbie darts around the huge black pylons that make up the intricate maze of the battlefield. She crouches low, preparing to nail the enemy.

"Zing! Zap!" Barbie hears shots being fired nearby, but she can't spot a human target. Then, just as she's about to step boldly into enemy territory, someone approaches her from behind.

Ambush!

Barbie and another warrior collide. She's been accidentally bulldozered by Ed Commander, her boss and teammate (code name: "Barbarella"). As they try to regroup, a thin stream of red light strikes Barbie's vest. She's being iced - electronically.

The mystery assassin, bunkered behind a wall, aims with brutal precision through a hole in the structure. Barbie jams off a few shots in vain and sprints to her team's home base. She's a moving target, but with her back turned, she's defenseless. Her opponent gives chase, racking up points by pinging the exposed back of her vest: She's losing "lives" at a frightening pace.

Corporate Warriors Run Amok

By day, Erica Koenig, an assistant account executive for the international colossus Grey Advertising, works on the 28th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. But tonight she will morph into Barbie, a phaser-toting predator. She and 13 of her Grey colleagues will descend into Lazer Park, a laser-tag arena near Times Square, and embark on a high-tech hunt. Their prey: each other.

Laser-tag fever is spreading at a pandemic rate. There are almost 500 laser-tag emporiums in the United States alone; six years ago, there were 80. At Lazer Park, people from such blue-chip companies as GE Capital, the Gap, Lucent Technologies, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley regularly take over the arena to chill out by icing their coworkers.

But laser tag is more than an adrenaline-charged antidote to the relentless round of make-or-break deadlines. Laser tag lets people abandon their work roles and take on new, playfully competitive ones. Amid the chaos of battle, bosses become followers and subordinates become chief strategists - even heroes. Laser tag helps people bond by making their company's org chart irrelevant.

For five fast-forward minutes per game, the crew from Grey Advertising will swap their boring professional titles for such ominous handles as "Corporal Punishment," "Skywalker," "Pestilence," and "The Cleaner." Before playing, the crew will divide into two teams: "account side" people, who spend their days mediating all aspects of the client-company relationship, and "creatives," who design the actual campaigns. It's the classic confrontation between button-down corporate types and let-your-hair-down "talent." Which will win the day - the planning and strategy of the account side or the ingenuity of the creatives?

Where PIBs Rule

As they descend a staircase that leads from Times Square into Lazer Park, the people from Grey are greeted by a surreal depiction of an astral plain. Neon images of stars and planets loom overhead as the crew sinks into an interior that's part high-tech, part honky-tonk. Humble skee-ball games share the noisy arcade with the latest in virtual-reality combat games. The main attraction is the 5,000-square-foot laser-tag arena, where instead of simply playing a game, you become part of it.

The first stop is the observation deck. The people from Grey peer down upon the symmetrical maze in which they will soon hunt one another. A game is in full swing.

In the black light of a battlefield, players dodge and feint and fire their phasers, which shoot streams of blazing red light. The motto "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" holds literal truth here. Teeth and eyes - any color except black - glow in the eerie luminescence. PIBs (people in black) have a distinct advantage. Anyone clad in a white oxford might as well be wearing a sign that says, "Kill me now."

The novices from Grey quickly clue into the basic idea: Two teams protect their bases from each other. The immediate goal is to zap your opponents (25 points per hit). Real high scoring requires getting to the opposing team's side of the field and blasting its three bases (100, 150, and 200 points per hit) - without getting done in along the way.

Fortunately, on this battleground, there is life after death. You can always return to your own side of the field, walk under a recharger, and be digitally reborn. Players are judged by individual performance, but victory goes to the highest-scoring team. So what's good for your own bragging rights might not be good for your group.