It’s Saturday afternoon and three Quincy House residents are relaxing in the House courtyard, playing wiffleball and relishing the last bit of quiet before the shots begin again.

As 4 p.m.—the time the amnesty is scheduled to end—approaches, students begin to crowd the courtyard, readying themselves for the shootout scheduled between a member of the Quincy House assassins team Anaconda and a member of the team Public Privates.

With their guns in hand, the two opponents move to opposite corners of the green. They soon begin to circle slowly toward each other, sizing each other up and wondering who will make the first move.

Suddenly, one student rushes toward the other and slips on the grass. It appears that he is about to die, but as his designated enemy stands above him, a spray of darts flies through the air. In a shocking turn of events, his opponent is dead.

Overjoyed by his victory, he runs to his teammates and grabs a bottle of gin—the game is back on.

The Rules of The Wild West

Saturday’s dramatic death in the Quincy courtyard is part of Assassins, a springtime House ritual that pits different groups of students against each other with the goal of eliminating the other teams’ members.

Each group, which consists of three to six students, is assigned an opposing team to hunt and “kill”—by shooting someone with a dart or nerf gun.

The hunt defines many students’ day-to-day lives. Some skip classes, choosing instead to map out their enemies’ days and follow them to class.

Quincy House has even established an Assassins website, posting news of the day’s kills and rumors of opponents’ whereabouts.

Participants in Quincy House’s Assassins game can only be killed when they are within the House or the sidewalks around it.

At Quincy House, where this year’s Assassins game follows a “western” theme, with a “ranger” who monitors the events and teams called “posses,” seven teams are currently left standing out of the original 12.

For six Quincy House residents, who compose the team MI6, named for the British intelligence agency, the Assassins game has brought a level of drama and excitement to a sometimes mundane House life.

Since last Thursday, MI6 has lost four of its six members, and the remaining two say they are just trying to enjoy the rest of their time in the game.

When the hunt ends with a mass shootout between the remaining posses within the next week, the winner will take away prize money and a sense of glory.

Shootout in B-Entryway

Relaxing at the Quincy House Grille Tuesday night a few hours after a skirmish with a member of the Untouchables, two members of MI6, Andrew J. Gartland ’04 and Brian T. Cantwell ’04, describe the events of last Saturday, their most exhilarating day yet in their battle against their rival group, the Untouchables.

The excitement began at about 6 p.m., the students say, when they snuck through Quincy basement from D-entryway toward B-entryway, where they were met with a barrage of fire.

The members of the Untouchables had somehow anticipated their attack. In an attempt to escape the standoff in the basement, MI6 fled to an A-entryway room where the members of the Public Privates, another team, lived.

“Public Privates’ room connects to B-entryway,” says Gartland. “Going in that way would allow us to attack the Untouchables from the top.”

As MI6 entered B-entryway, they tried to surprise the Untouchables with a bird’s eye view attack from the top of the stairs. But the yellow darts did not find their targets, the students remember, instead bouncing weakly off the hallway door the Untouchables were hiding behind.

So they turned to a different plan of attack.

“We knew our only chance at getting them was to sneak into the hallway and try shooting at them” Gartland says.

When that did not work, Cantwell says, their frustration with the Untouchables increased.

“We requested that they come out into the courtyard and play the game it was meant to be played, but they didn’t want to battle” Cantwell says.

Peace Was A Thing of The ’70s

That Saturday, the pressure of the game continued late into the night.

Around 8:30 p.m., members of MI6 prepared to go to dinner in Central Square for their blockmate’s birthday. As Cantwell and Gartland prepared to leave, they say they packed their guns into a shoulder bag.

“It was kind of sad, but we had to be careful, so we put our guns in a shoulder bag and carried it with us, just in case we might need it later on in the evening” Cantwell says.

After returning from dinner, the students remember, they got ready to head to the ’80s Dance in Leverett around midnight.

Still carrying the shoulder bag, Cantwell says he sought a place to hide the guns so they would not be stolen.

Luckily, Cantwell says, the Leverett House Master let them hide the guns under a chair.

At around 12:30 a.m., Gartland briefly left the safety of the dance—and unexpectedly encountered a member of the Untouchables.

“He started to follow me, step by step, and even when I told him I wasn’t going home, he kept following me,” Gartland says. “When I went back into the ’80s Dance, he tried to follow me inside, but they wouldn’t let him in because he wouldn’t pay.”

Less than an hour later, as the crowd from the ’80s Dance began to gather outside of Leverett House, the members of MI6 saw one their roommates.

“I was going across the street to say ‘hi’ to my roommate and see how his night went when I saw a member of the Untouchables in the crowd, trying to hide, with a gun in one hand and another one under his jacket” Cantwell says.

As Cantwell walked toward his roommate, he says he suddenly felt a Nerf gun on his back. The Untouchables member stood on the street, hoping Cantwell would step onto the sidewalk, where the Assassins rules allowed him to be shot.

Moving away from the sidewalk and toward his friends, Cantwell scanned the crowd, and quickly saw the three other members of the Untouchables.

“When we saw the other members of the Untouchables, we knew that we couldn’t go back to Quincy, so we decided to stay out longer and go to some final clubs” Cantwell says.

As the group started to walk down Plympton Street, the members of the Untouchables followed them. But once the group reached the end of the street, Cantwell says, the Untouchables stopped and glared at them, since they were too far away from Quincy House to allow a kill.

At 3 a.m., the members of MI6 said they were finally able to return to Quincy without having to worry about members of the Untouchables waiting for them or stalking them.

The coast was finally clear.

“When we got back to Quincy, there was no one waiting for us. I guess it was pass the Untouchables bedtime,” Cantwell jokes.