The timer ticks down toward zero. We tear across the Boneyard, one of Halo: Reach‘s best multiplayer maps, my good friend Rus driving with me sitting shotgun. I’m clutching the blue flag in hands that would be sweating if they were real. We shed our red teammates like skin; they race past us going the other direction on foot and in alien vehicles, crashing to pieces against the blue players that pursue us. They fall, re-spawn, hurtle past, and fall again. All the while the timer ticks down.