Death Match - Diane Duane [78]
“Things aren’t usually,” George said. “But there’s no harm in trying to make them fair for the next guy along.”
Catie could think of no reply to that.
“It’s not going to be so bad,” George said.
“Yes, it is,” said Catie.
George’s face twisted into a pained shape Catie didn’t particularly like to see on it. “All right,” he said, “yes! It is! But we can’t let that stop us. We’re going to give them a fight like they’ve never seen before. We’re going to show the people who put the fix in that the only way to stop us is to fix the game in ways that have never been seen before…and even if we lose, we’re going to play like no one’s ever seen a spat team play before. We’re going to play so well that everyone who sees the game we’re about to lose will shake their heads and wonder what the heck went wrong. Then when they see Chicago play at the weekend, those same people are going to shake their heads and say, ‘They should never have made it this far. Someone must have been cheating the system somehow.’ And that’s the best way for us to respond, the only way that also helps Net Force do what it needs to do about this situation. I don’t like it much. It’s not at all the ending for this season that I dreamed of. The team doesn’t like it much, either. It doesn’t match their dreams. But we’re not going to go quietly. I promise you that!”
They both sat quiet for a few moments, looking in different directions. Then George looked over at the chess-board. “I see you’ve got me in a knight fork,” he said.
“I’ve had you there for three moves,” Catie said.
“You gonna do anything about it?”
“I’ve started doing something about it,” Catie said. “Your bishop.”
“I’m not worried about that,” George said, and gave her a superior look. “Not after the way you threw that last knight away. Anyway, I’m going to take your queen in three moves.”
“No, you’re not,” Catie said.
“Yes, I am,” George said.
“You can’t. There’s no way—” Catie got up and stalked over to the chessboard, glad of an excuse not to have to look at George. She was upset; upset at the unfairness of life, which was about to cheat this guy and his friends of a victory that they deserved. And she hated to have people see her when she was upset.
“There,” she said, and picked up one of her bishops and moved it. The window hanging in the air with the notation of the game changed itself to reflect the move.
George got up and wandered over to the chessboard, looking over Catie’s shoulder at the board’s center area. “Getting messy in there,” he said.
“Not nearly as messy as some places,” Catie said, heart-sore. In her mind all she could see was that great piled-up tangle of code in the ISF server, intricate, complex, and rotten at its core.
George was silent for a moment. “Catie,” he said. “You did the best you could. It’s out of our hands now—your hands and mine. All we can do now is play the game through to the end, and try to do it with some dignity. And in the meantime…I appreciate that you were trying to help. I really do.”
Catie nodded. “Do you have a move?” she said.
He looked at the board one more time. “Not tonight,” he said. “I’ll have a couple for you tomorrow, before we go off to practice. And then one more later.”
“All right,” she said.
George went back to his doorway, went through it, vanished. Catie didn’t turn to watch him go, just looked at the bishop she had moved, and found herself suddenly wishing that the game she had so much been looking forward to would never happen at all.
The last contact between them before the game, on Wednesday night, was made over a voice-only line. They would not now speak again until after the game on Thursday.
“…The neighbors said she left early to pick up her daughter at school,” Darjan said, “and she didn’t come back. She went off to hide somewhere, apparently. She hasn’t come back yet.