“Why would I want to do that?”
Why, Alice, why?
“Because of the audience behind me.” I point over my shoulder. “They need some entertainment.”
A few men and women in the dark agree.
“You see?” I say. “They don’t want to watch a game where they know I will just die in the end.”
“Then what do they want to watch?”
“A game where there is the slightest possibility I will win. Just a little bit.”
“I can’t help you with that,” the Chessmaster says. “It’s you who is dumb, not me.”
“Yes, but you could play on my behalf.”
“This is what I was about to do when you stopped me.”
“But you could play a brilliant move on my behalf, not a bad one,” I lament.
“Again, why would I do that?”
“To show your audience how you can excel and win, even with such a brilliant move.”
The Chessmaster’s smile broadens. He likes it. He just bit into a wasp’s nest without knowing it. Even when I’m only buying time, not knowing what to do.
And then he makes a third move on my behalf.
Chapter 76
The Last Chess Game, Chess City, Kalmykia
This obliges me to drink my third drink. I haven’t felt anything from the last two, but the third is definitely dizzying. That’s not good, I need my mind alert to think of something else.
Surprisingly, the Chessmaster struggles with topping his own move. A few members of the unseen crowd hiss with wonder. The Chessmaster tenses.
A few minutes later, I see him sweat. Was he really that stupid or hasn’t he played against his ego before?
But finally he manages and responds to his own move.
“Brilliant!” a few members of the audience hail.
“Now I should play your fourth move,” he tells me.
And just right there, when his hand reaches for my fourth move, I get hit with a lightning bolt in my head. I immediately stop his hand.
“What now?”
“I think I can make my next move,” I declare.
“Is that so?”
“I think I can beat you,” I say.
“Really? Again? Do you really think you have the slightest idea what you are talking about?”
“I think I do.”
The members in the dark gasp.
“Come on,” the Chessmaster says. “You don’t really believe she can…”
I interrupt him with my next move. The winner’s move.
The Chessmaster squints at it. His face dims. His brows furrow, and his forehead knots.
Then the Chessmaster bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” He points at the chessboard. “You’re so easy, you have no idea.”
“Why?” I act surprised, afraid, worried and in shock.
“You just handed me an early win with your move,” he says.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. You totally lost it. This is the worst move possible. I can checkmate you right now.”
I resist a small sneaky smile from shaping on the corner of my lips. Unfortunately, he catches it.
“Wait.” He leans back. “You have a bigger plan, don’t you?”
I dim my face and tense my shoulders on purpose. “I wish I had. I really thought this was the best move.”
“Really?” He thinks it over. “You know, none of the world leaders I played with, no matter how bad at chess they were, made such a bad move.”
“Oh.” I cup my mouth with my hands. “Did I do that bad?”
“You could have shot yourself in a Russian Roulette and never done this bad.”
“Can you please give me a chance to correct it?” I plead, reaching for his hands.
The Chessmaster pushes them away. “Of course not. You know why? Because your move is so bad, I have no other move but to checkmate you. I mean, literally I have no other option but to end the game now.”
In my pleading and his rage, he reaches for his favorite knight and checkmates my black queen to death.
The crowd behind me claps and hails and chirps with enthusiasm, cameras flashing from all around. The Chessmaster has just executed his fourth move and checkmated me.
“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,” he tells me, merit wrapping his soul. “I’ve killed you, Alice.”
That’s when I sit back, cross leg over another, place my elbow on the rim of the chair, and glance with disgust at him.
The Chessmaster isn’t the first to sense what really happened in here, but the audience do. They let out a series of uncontrollable shrieks, saying, “She tricked him!”
The Chessmaster’s face knots so tightly I thought he was going to bleed. He stares at the chess pieces, the checkmated queen, and doesn’t get it. What’s the fuss about? Why is the audience saying that the little girl from Wonderland tricked him?
Then his eyes shift toward the poison cups.
I seize the moment and reach for my fourth cup and gulp it with all the easiness in the world. It does drive me crazy and makes me dizzy, but I don’t show it, because I’m in for the grand prize: saving the world.