During the Orientation Week (nolle-p) at larger Swedish universities, students get together in groups and get specific missions to complete before the week is over. It could be anything from being “cheerleaders” when your section competes in one of many competitions (like the “packling”, where you cram in as many freshmen as possible into one Nissan Micra) to do a funny prank to one of the other sections (preferably the I-section).

I got my mission last week and I and my group have been preparing the whole weekend. The mission is called “JAS” and is a competition between all the sections of the Institute.  It is very similar to the Swedish thing called Deathgame. Basically, it means “killing” other people in other teams with a variety of weapons; Knives (carrots), Pistols (a banana), Hand grenades (apples), vaults that you drop on people’s heads (cushions) and timed bombs (anything that counts down and then rings). “Killing” is only an imagined death, nothing happens for real, of course!

The “armY”, the Y-section JAS group, consists of me and five other people that have the mission to take down as many soldiers in other JAS groups without getting killed ourselves. A kill is, for instance, (gently) stabbing an opponent in the back with a carrot. The opponent is then killed and you are awarded the user’s “life badge” for the day. He writes his/her name on it and you write yours, and that scores a kill.

Every kill means one more point for your team, and a death means minus one point. The game is on between 12:10 and 13:00 and 17:00 to 07:00 the following day, meaning that you cannot kill during school hours (except for lunch time, tee he). If you die you get resurrected on 07:00 the next morning, and you have one life every day.

Weapons are not the only things that can be used. Wearing a bullet-proof vest (a buoyancy vest, flytväst) means you are invulnerable to the pistol bullet (i.e. the banana), and a bike helmet protects against vaults dropped on your head. Full body armour is available if you have a real spacesuit. That means a genuine, real, spacesuit.

Back to today. Monday was the first day of four in the JAS game. I and my group, armY, have been collecting buoyancy vests, bike helmets, apples, carrots, bananas and timers from our classes to get equipped with all the deadly weapons needed for successful killing. I arrived early for school, went into the big lecture hall C1 and planted my mobile phone to ring at 12:10 and kill the I-section soldiers that were to finish their math lecture there by then. A successful “terrorist bomb” would mean taking out all of them, giving many points to armY. I left C1 after successfully planting the device well hidden in the A/V equipment.

Hours passed as the clock slowly ticked on to lunchtime. Around 12:10 our team gathered outside C1, equipped with the obligatory red band on your arm (a signal that you are part of the JAS)  and “bulletproof vests”, “knives”, “pistols”, “grenades” and helmets. The clock turned to 12:10. The slaughter is on! I-section students started to exit C1, and we waited for some kind of reaction from their team that, according to our plan, were supposed to succumb in the “explosion”. We made our way into the hall as the final students exited. When we entered only one student remained, and there were no signs of the “explosion”. We asked him about what had happened, and he told us that the bomb had gone off at 12:06, before the game had started and that it didn’t qualify for a kill. Apparently the clock on the phone was incorrectly set.

Sigh. Our grandiose plan to start off the first game minute so boldly was shattered to pieces.  There was nothing else to do than to exit the building, starting to look for easy targets as we went towards the dining area. We paced forward between the buildings passing a lot of civilians until we saw what we wanted. A group of D (computer science) students were gathered at the corner of house A talking and they were all wearing the red arm bands.

I and my friends ran towards them, I pulled the “detonator pin” (the stick) from one of my apples and threw them towards the group. It landed near them and would have been counted as four kills if they would not already have been killed by a third soldier standing nearby. Apparently he (an I-section student, of course!) had already blown all of them except one to pieces with the apple grenade. The D student that still was alive ran away from the apple before it landed and he charged me right on. He fired his pistol, forgetting that I was wearing a bulletproof vest that made this attack impossible. I ran towards him, pulled my knife (carrot) and stabbed him in the chest, making my first kill!

After I got his life badge my friend shouted to me that a few unsuspecting I students have been spotted between house C and Kårallen. We quickly regrouped, ran towards the point crouched behind one of the hedges that lead to the place. I saw one of them leaving the area, I jumped from behind the hedge and got  him with my banana pistol. My friend had at that time thrown an apple towards the other person, scratching even one more  I-student off the list. The three of us that were gathered rejoiced and were taking care of  the life badges when another I-student ran from behind another hedge, throwing the apple towards the two of us that were still alive, shredding us to pieces. I died.

Meanwhile, in Kårallen (where special rules apply; only carrots and vaults allowed) another team member was illegaly fired upon with a banana gun, making the kill invalid. He paced out to us, borrowed a carrot from me, ran back and stabbed the guy just as he stabbed back on my friend. They got each other.

All of this happened in less than ten minutes. Everybody in our team except one strong survivor died in combat, but the four kills we got gave us in total zero points for the day. I am now dead until 07:00 the next morning, but now I proudly wear two black strokes on my Orientation Week tie, symbolizing my two kills.

Tomorrow will be even more interesting. We have now decided upon quickly leaving a place as visible as where we died because of the high risk of exposure from other teams, as well as some new tactics. If you happen to be at LiTH this week and see people running around in dark sunglasses, bike helmets, buoyancy vests holding bananas and carrots in their hands; don’t worry. It’s probably us going for another kill.