“Drawn… wore… wait…” Ryan put down his binoculars and scowled. “I can’t read their lips properly with that reflection from the window.”

I took a sip of chai, bought from a nearby street vendor. It sent an array of spices to the back of my throat that cooled and burned at the same time. It was sweet, filled with cream and heavy on the tongue. More importantly, it hadn’t emptied out my wallet with one purchase. “Ahh. Okay, why not just walk into the shop and read their lips from inside?”

“Because I already talked to Roberts, and he might very well recognize me. Plus right now I actually don’t think – yep, they’re getting up now.” He pulled up the hood of his jacket and started walking away from the shop. I sighed and followed his lead. By the time we doubled back, the two of them were long gone. “Don’t you think we would’ve had better luck just following them again?”

“Perhaps. But personally, I got the impression that these two have met here before. It might be worth checking out this place properly.” He crossed the street and started walking towards the door.

“As good a plan as any, I guess. Although I can’t stop wondering about those two, Andy and Carlton.” I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about them by their first names now, for which I completely blame the gossip session I’d done with our client. “You think those two just… made up their grudge against each other? They got into a public fistfight at one point.” And if I recall correctly, Roberts had broken Bose’s nose in the process. Electrical engineering must build up more muscle than I thought.

“Well, I can tell you they certainly played up their feud for extra engagement on their platform. You know how effective that can be. But other than that it’s hard to say. Ambition does make for unlikely allies.” Ryan pushed open the door and we both entered the coffee shop.

A swift scanning of the menu plastered on the wall told me that I was right to assume the prices here were ridiculous. Still, I have to admit they did a fantastic job with the decor. Brass lamps were scattered across the place, each providing its own halo of soft, golden light. There were nice, cushy seats and actually readable reading material shelved on the bookcases around the establishment. By habit, I wondered if I could nag Ryan into buying me a nice mug of pumpkin spice. Then I remembered his personal funds were technically our personal funds and if we kept wasting it on stuff like this we’d both end up unable to pay the bills.

Is this what acting like an adult is supposed to be like? God, it sucks.

My brother sidled up to the cashier, a frizzy-haired young woman who’d been scribbling on a pile of worksheets on the counter when we arrived. “Slow afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Not reeeally.” She said, dragging out the word as far as she could. She tossed the pen onto the counter, clearly glad to have an excuse to avoid her homework. “I mean, you can see most of the seats are full. It’s just that these people only come up to the counter to buy something every few hours, and none of them consider me worthy of conversation! Aren’t people supposed to flirt with pretty cashiers?” She waved her hands at her coffee-stained uniform as if that somehow accentuated her point.

Ryan blinked. “Oh, certainly. But I find people are terrible at doing what they’re supposed to. Atrocious design flaw, really. Now, if you don’t mind yours truly to be the one opening up a conversation, there’s something I’d really appreciate your help with.”

She groaned in disappointment tinged with self-mockery. “The tall, dark and handsome stranger wants me for something other than my looks? Just my luck.”

Thankfully, before they did something disgusting like exchange phone numbers, Ryan managed to switch the topic over to what Carlton and Andy were doing here. To my surprise, he actually gave her a trimmed-down version of the entire case. Going into that much detail seemed counterproductive to me until I saw how invested she was getting into the story.

“Two sworn rivals, meeting with each other in secret?” She said, her voice trembling with excitement and her eyes growing wide. “You think they’re having a love affair? No wonder they don’t want anyone to find out!”

My brother and I exchanged looks. “Yeah, I don’t think Mr. Roberts’s husband would be very happy about that.” Ryan said slowly. “But did you notice them do anything of that nature?”

“Hrm? Nah, not really. They just sat down there and played chess most of the time.” She waved her hand towards a back corner. “They usually just sat there most of the time, or as close as they could get, and just played. They didn’t even order much other than the ginger churros, and everyone knows those are terrible. Don’t even know why we’re still selling them, actually.”

“So they came here how often?” I cut in.

“Every Monday, in the beginning. But over the last two months or so, they started coming in two or three times a week! And they started staying longer each time, too.”

Ryan pointed at a blinking camera. “Any chance there’s footage of these meetings on that?”

She chewed her lip, her enthusiasm briefly dampened. “I dunno. It’s a pretty old system, and I think Gio wipes it every month. But I guess it’s worth a try!”

She gestured us behind the counter and cheerfully opened the kitchen door. Was she the only person working in the café right now? That didn’t feel legal. None of the coffee drinkers even looked up from their tables as we went inside.

The kitchen was considerably grimier than the seating area, and carried a persistent burnt-tea leaf smell. I didn’t notice any rats or cockroaches, but this did feel like a spot where they’d put their little feet up and feel right at home. Not to mention the CCTV system itself was old enough to still be using magnetic tapes. With all those sky-high prices, you’d think the least they could do was maintain basic restaurant standards. Why had this place not been raided by the health inspectors yet?

Those thoughts had plenty of time to ruminate as Ryan spent a good fifteen minutes wrestling with the camera system’s software, muttering to himself the whole time. “Okay, so assuming Bose and Roberts always come in here at the same time, which is far from guaranteed…”

The cashier, the one whom I suddenly realized I’d never bothered to learn the name of, was humming to herself cheerfully. She opened a fridge and dipped her finger in a bowl of brown treacle. She took her time to lick it off, too. Maybe I should be calling in the health inspectors.

“Right, here’s their last meeting today.” I looked over Ryan’s shoulder and winced. While we got to see them coming into the shop, they’d sat at a table almost right under where a camera was positioned, giving us a lovely view of their game from above but not much else.

“Does this thing have audio at least?” I asked.

My brother cursed under his breath in response. Then we all heard several successive rings of people entering the shop. “Ah!” said the cashier brightly. “My shift is going to end in a few minutes anyway. You guys should probably get going. Keep the tapes! I’m sure no one is going to miss them.”

“We’ll bring them back.” Ryan said quickly, and started stuffing them inside his backpack. We managed to leave by the front entrance just as I heard a gruff forbidding voice from the back I had to assume was our helper’s boss. Apparently, she’d left a line of customers at the cash register. Of course that’s the first thing the owner of this establishment paid notice to.

“I know what you’re thinking,” my brother said to me. “but wait until I get a chance to return the tapes before lodging a complaint. We’ve had to pay legal fees way too many times this year.”

“And it’s good to see that you haven’t learnt your lesson from any of those prior incidents. But seriously, what’s our next move?”

“That’s what I’m currently trying to figure out. Give me some space to explain my train of thought, see if you have any suggestions to make for me.”

I nodded. “Yeah, sure.” The clouds had cleared just enough to let in a few setting sunrays, but the smell of incoming rain had grown stronger, and most of the passers-by were opening their umbrellas or remembering they’d forgotten them at home. A solitary leaf, pale brown and curling in on itself, detached from a tree and went flying across the street. Ryan caught it between two fingers, turning it over to examine it more closely.

“Most of the time, chess is a game based purely on skill. Not much luck is involved, which is what allows AI programs to reliably outcalculate any human, but it also makes it very hard to cheat without using an AI. There’s no dice or cards or spinners to manipulate. There’s no special information available to only one player at a time. I have heard of people messing with the chess clocks to gain a few seconds’ advantage on the timer, but the obvious problem with that…”

“You could be found out by anyone wearing a watch.”

“Precisely.” Ryan held up the leaf to the sky, letting the sunlight illuminate the veins and cracks running through it. He ran his thumb along the serrated edge. “The question of motive, at least, is straightforward. Intelligent people devoting the majority of their entire lives to a game makes it a breeding ground for egotism and cutthroat behavior. Not to mention there’s some not-insignificant betting practices going on for these games, especially since they’re so popular around here. But the method of the cheating is what we need to find out, and that keeps eluding me.”

I frowned. “Don’t you have those special gizmos? You know, those tiny transparent earpieces. You’ve used them in the field before. Maybe Roberts paid top dollar for something like that.”

“That was my first thought, yes, but for one thing they’re not ideal for sensitive work like this, and for the other someone got caught with them a few months back. People would be on the lookout for that. Plus the camera feed for the matches between Mr. Roberts and Ms. Veldt was remarkably clear, quite unlike the one we just watched. Checking those close-up reveals no evidence of earpieces, hidden or otherwise.” He twisted the leaf harder, new cracks webbing across the surface just as the first few raindrops began to fall.

“Okay, but if you think Carlton cheated by listening to the AI’s suggestions, wouldn’t that be obvious just by seeing how he played? You know, if he was making perfect moves the whole time.”

He nodded. “Anyone halfway competent would rely on their own decisions at least some of the time. Which brings me back to the main question: how did he pull it off? Even if he had Anand Bose’s help, even if he had paid off one of the organizers, how in the world would he be able to use that to cheat?”

Ryan sighed and wrenched open the car door. “Caissa Veldt secured an invite for both of us as hangers-on for a fundraising event tonight. We’ll get to meet Bose and Roberts again there.” He shook his head in frustration. “I can’t think of much else to do at this point.”

He let the leaf go as he got inside the car, and it flew upwards once more, dancing in spirals through the rain before floating out of sight.

*

We were out of time to rent a suit by the time we got back. Luckily my brother’s spare tuxedo fitted me quite well, which pleased me in a weird sort of way. At this rate I might grow a few inches taller than he was. For twelve-year-old Dylan, that would’ve been the dream.

I’d been a little more skeptical about the tux itself when Ryan had handed it over, which had been dyed a navy blue. But I had to concede that it also looked pretty good, especially after combing back my curls a little and picking out a black silk tie. Probably something borrowed from Dad that Ryan had forgotten to give back. I gave the tie one final determined tug around my neck. I’d had to resort to online tutorials (again), but had ended up with a fairly presentable half-Windsor knot. With a sigh, I took another look at myself in the mirror.

Running around dealing with Ryan’s problems had made me lose a bit of weight, so that was nice. But the last couple years spent partying and surviving the City’s winters had paled a complexion that had once been a rich cinnamon brown. It made my dark eyes look deeply set into my face, and gave me an unsettlingly fragile appearance. I found myself twisting my black ring again. The swirls and ridges on the outside already felt more worn down than before.

Ryan appeared at the doorway, putting on a pair of silvery cufflinks. “You ready, Dy?”

I patted my chest, in the place in the tuxedo jacket where I’d holstered my pistol. It would take a precious few seconds to reach it through my jacket, which I’ll admit made me feel uncomfortable. At least there wasn’t a bulge obvious to the outside eye. Also the risks of a shootout over a chess scandal struck me as low. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

He nodded, checking his phone. “The client just sent us an address. 88 Rozlev Avenue. That’s not too far.”

I locked the front door as we came out. The Song family were having their nightly debate next door, this time about what seemed to be late-night reality TV actors. It was kind of comforting to hear them go at it by now. They really did treat it as a valuable part of their daily regimen.

“What’s the game plan for tonight?” I asked, trying and failing to stuff my hands into my suit pockets. Why were these stupid things always sewn shut anyway?

“I’m working on it.” We came down to the garage of the apartment complex, giving Mara the security guard a wave, and got into the car. Ryan stayed silent for the rest of the journey, though more in a thoughtful mood than a sullen one judging by the fact he gave me control over the radio. I found a station with a playlist of old Fridgekeys songs, and that kept me content for the rest of the way. Some of you guys might not have heard of them. I mean, I love the band and even I’ll grant their brand of weirdness ain’t suited for the mainstream. They started off with pretty typical country songs before branching out into almost every genre of music possible, often switching styles six of seven times in the same song. Their songs rarely have a consistent rhythm, which usually drives Ryan crazy.

But tonight? He didn’t even look up for the entire drive, not even when I turned on the volume and started singing along.

Caissa Veldt was standing on the sidewalk as I parked on the side of the road, smoking a cigarette and staring at the sky. She was wearing a crisp white pantsuit with a blue shirt, something I’d expect more at a business lunch than a party. She blew out smoke one last time and carefully stubbed the cigarette on the brick wall next to her. “I suppose it’s a little too much to ask from one day’s work, but have you boys found anything?”

“Nothing concrete,” I admitted, “but enough to tell that if our guy Carlton is up to something, he’s doing it in cahoots with Andy Bose.”

Caissa raised a single manicured eyebrow, looking disappointingly unsurprised. “I see. Always thought the fighting between those two seemed more manufactured than most.” She looked us both up and down. “Try to be a little low-key with the questioning, if you don’t mind. Perhaps lead the organizers to think you’re potential sponsors?”

“Perhaps.” Ryan repeated. “Low-key we can do, but people are going to ask questions, Ms. Veldt. I would advise you to openly stand by your accusations if you truly believe they have merit.”

She gave him a steely look. “Do you believe they have merit, Mr. Neville?”

“I do.” He said, and walked inside without another word.

The party was fine. I don’t know what I was really expecting from a chess fundraiser, anyway. There were champagne flutes and a string quartet and even ice sculptures of giant chess pieces, but the only thing that surprised me were the numerous chocolate chessboards that had been shipped in from Temper’s. I selected a dark chocolate pawn and rolled it around my mouth. It tasted sharper than Temper’s usually did, the bitterness bordering on sour.

“Wei’s here.” Caissa was muttering under her breath. “Xander, Jorania, Haque… but no Carlton. He might spend most of his time complaining about these things, but that’s never stopped Ivan from dragging him to them anyway. I should introduce you to Ivan. He’s a wonderful person.” She exclaimed, her accent stressing the w, “nothing like his husband whatsoever. Ah, there he is!”

Ivan Roberts was balding and just shy of five feet tall, but there was a strange, luminous quality to his smile. I probably would’ve taken him for one of the chess players had we not been introduced. “Ah, Caissa.” He said, shaking our client’s hand and shaking it up and down with the enthusiasm of a puppy with its favorite toy. “I heard you did so very well at the tournament! Good, very good! Carlton’s somewhere around here – he hates big crowds, though he sure loves a big audience. What a man! By the way, he tells me you played excellently in your matches against him. I’m sure you’ll crush Andy tomorrow.”

She was facing Bose tomorrow? That felt like need-to-know information. Still, in the last few months I’d witnessed so much carelessness and fuzzy remembrances from the people who’d hired us that I wasn’t even surprised anymore.

Unfortunately, this line of conversation led to even more jargon-filled gossip no one bothered to explain to me this time. After a few minutes, I wasn’t even sure if it had anything to do with chess anymore. My eyes skimmed over the rest of the room, coming to rest on a few tables and chairs set out in the center. There were gleaming new chess sets laid out on top. Some of the more bored or awkward players of the evening had decided to sit down and play against each other. Was this some kind of display piece? Some way for the millionaires to take a look in person at what they were funding? That was creative, if also in its own way just a touch repulsive .

I sauntered over to the only empty set in the room, and ran my hands over the pieces. They were smooth and metallic to the touch despite being nearly transparent. Some kind of glass, or plastic maybe? I lifted the king, and felt something pulling at my grip.

“Magnets.” I murmured, and let it clink satisfyingly back onto the board. I don’t know why it is, but magnets are always satisfying. They stimulate the area of the monkey brain that wants to smash cool rocks together. I noticed a shadow over my shoulder, turning to meet Andy Bose. He was still wearing his afternoon outfit, with his corporate-splattered jacket and quite unfashionably ripped jeans. Why did he get to circumvent the dress code? Had that option always been available?

“I saw you.” He said, breathing heavily, and I took a quick look around for any possible cameras. You never knew with Youtubers. “I saw you in the seats. What would Veldt want with someone like you, anyway?”

How would Ryan want me to answer that question? Something told me Andy here wouldn’t buy the ‘potential sponsor’ story. I picked up another piece and let it clink back down. “Hey,” I asked. “Do all these sets have magnets? You know, like the ones in the tournament?”

“What? No!” He said, his irritation at having his question ignored warring with a stuck-up intellect’s desire to correct someone. The intellect won the tussle. “The tournament uses a Staunton! The standard! They wouldn’t use magnets.” He was standing right in my face now, close enough I could feel the spittle coming off of him. I took a step back, looking around for Ryan and Caissa, but none of them were in sight.

Had they finally gone to meet Carlton Roberts? If so, where?

“Who are you, anyway?” Andy demanded, on a roll now and unable to stop even if he’d wanted to. He waved a clenched fist in my face. A moderate amount of muscle bulged under his suit, which still made for a lot more than I had. “Did Caissa hire you as a bodyguard? No, you’re too shrimpy for that.” He gave a sudden, staccato laugh, loud enough that other people were starting to pay attention to us. “God, that woman’s so dramatic! Always finding something to squeal about. Word on the grapevine’s that she thinks Carlton cheated, just cause she got her ass kicked. Carlton! I hate that slimy gutless prick as much as anyone… But if anyone’s a cheater, it’s her!”

Normally I would’ve said this guy had drunk up enough champagne flutes to supply his own orchestra. But he smelled sober, and despite the way he spoke he looked sober too. His gaze was wild, but those eyes carried a cold focus.

Now, how could I take advantage of this situation?

“A cheater?” I gasped. “I can’t imagine that of Ms. Veldt of all people.”

“You think? It wasn’t too long ago that she did it. I told them, I told them there that she was taking too many of those bathroom breaks during the game, always applying that perfume! I told them, there’s any number of things you could hide in those little canisters, like supercomputers…”

“Why perfume?” I asked, quite curious, “Why not lip balm or a water bottle or something? I mean, fixating on a girl’s perfume is pretty interesting.” I waggled my eyebrows at him suggestively. “You know what I mean? But honestly if you were her type I think she would’ve made a move by now. Very sad, I suppose, but you know what they say. There’s always more fish in the – ”

Andy Bose drew back his fist and punched me in the face.

Ryan had gotten me to learn a bit of martial arts stuff when we were kids. Not a lot of it had stuck. Just enough to see the punch coming, but not to get out of the way. As it was, I was scrambling back as its impact, with his knuckles brushing me across the cheekbone and knocking my head back. Like I’ve said, I’m no good at hand-to-hand fighting. Give me just a little bit of space, though…

Even as I knocked over the table and the chess set on it, I grabbed a pawn off the table and beaned him right in the eye. It was a beautiful throw, just beautiful. It was from a short distance, sure, but not many people could throw that straight in such circumstances. Bose gave a little scream and clutched at his face just as the security ran towards us.

I groaned and stumbled into a chair, rubbing my cheek. His fist had hit hard enough to make me feel dizzy, and I really wanted to lie down. “Look man, let’s try to be rational adults about this…” He did not want to be rational. Which is why I had throw another chess piece, a queen this time, right in his crotch.

In my defense, from that angle there really wasn’t a better target.

*

Carlton Roberts was actually sipping champagne on the balcony at the time. My brother had decided that taking this conversation outside would be for the best. He claimed later that he hadn’t even noticed I wasn’t with them during the meeting, and I’m not sure whether he’s telling the truth or if I should be offended by it.

Nonetheless, Carlton and his husband had given him the most bare-bones answers possible. Carlton’s massive skill jump in the game had been from a few months of long and intense practice. Why, Ivan in that period had had to shoulder most of the work in managing their electronics business! They hadn’t budged from that position, and any chance to root out inconsistencies was ruined by the scuffle between Bose and me. Which, by the way, became viral almost immediately. Because why wouldn’t it.

Our drive home was conducted mostly in silence. “No matter what you might hear,” I began after a few minutes, “none of what happened was my fault.”

“I know, Dylan.”

“In fact I’m pretty sure that Andy Bose was – ”

“I know.”

The first thing he did after stepping inside was to flop himself right down on the carpet and let out a long, exhausted sigh. Then he reached out with a hand and popped out one of the wall panels, pulling out a giant grey box. I’m not exactly sure what the box is, considering the many different ways I’ve seen him use it. It’s heavier than it looks, and it already looks pretty damn heavy. He took a few seconds to wire the box to a laptop taken from his backpack. He tapped away at the keyboard for a seconds, frowning, and proceeded to take out the CCTV tapes from his backpack and somehow slot them into the box.

He glanced up at me for a second, then back at the screen. Most of the anger in his eyes had faded into tiredness, with those silvery sparks around his pupils still dancing as he thought.

“You know,” I offered, “there’s this new thing I just heard about called a work-life balance. Maybe try it out sometime. Take eight hours of sleep for once. It’s not like we’re on a deadline for this case.”

He yawned and shook his head. “Nah. Feel like I’m close enough to the answer that I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t put the pieces together.”

I leaned down to look at his computer screen, which was loading a video. “And here I thought you said you didn’t have any answers. What’s your game plan?”

“The usual one. Go over old trodden ground, this time a little more thoroughly, until something rattles up in this brain of mine that I missed before.” He tapped his head with his knuckles. “Usually works. But most of this will be chess stuff you won’t be familiar with. You should go to sleep, or to whatever weird shit you get up to during this time.” He shrugged and went back to typing.

I blinked. “You sure?”

He looked back at me with annoyance, and maybe a little bit of curiosity. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Ryan might’ve had a right to be curious. I wasn’t usually the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. It had been a long day, I was tired to the bone, and there really wasn’t much I could do to help him here. It wasn’t like I was his real assistant, anyway. I was just here long enough to find another job, and another place to stay.

How long had I been looking, again?

I sighed and walked over to the kitchen, and brewed a jug of coffee. It was surprisingly late, actually. It felt like most of the night had passed in a blur. Most of the windows on the street were dark, with even most of the night owls in the neighborhood having drawn their curtains. A single motorcycle whizzed past and disappeared into the distance. I got some mostly crumbled up cookies out of the fridge, then tossed them in the microwave for a minute or so. They were oatmeal raisins, but the good kind, baked with lots and lots of butter.

I thought about pouring the coffee into cups, but eventually decided on taking the entire jug out into the living room. Ryan was still lying on the carpet, with his phone and computer still playing videos simultaneously. I placed the tray carefully on the coffee table and took a seat beside him.

“I’m sorry about the whole thing with Bose.” I said. “I antagonized him when I shouldn’t have, and probably screwed up any chances you had of getting something useful out of our target.”

Ryan shrugged. “I’ve done dumber things in my time. Besides, you shouldn’t let any misplaced sense of guilt make you stay up and – ”

“I’m your sounding board, dude.” I said, taking a large bite of warm cookie. “I wouldn’t be doing my job right if I wasn’t here. And if I don’t understand something, hell, maybe you’ll figure something out by explaining it to me. But we’re in this together now. Don’t try to squirm your way out of it.”

Look, I won’t say sorting through hours of chess videos and camera footage was fun. It wasn’t. But there was something homely about the experience. I played around with Ryan’s pocket chess set as he talked, messing with the magnetic pieces, and trying to remember what Dad taught me when he’d first showed us the game, all those years ago. I’d been eight or nine and at the time could’ve thought up a hundred games that seemed more interesting.

“Whatever system Roberts is using, it’s not perfect.” Ryan was saying. “I don’t just mean in the sense he might deliberately be making flawed moves to cover things up. I mean there are points in some of these games where he looks genuinely surprised, or has to think on his feet. And if we can figure out what kind of flaw that might be…”

I raised a rook and let the magnet draw it back down to the board, but the plastic pieces of this one were a lot less satisfying. There weren’t any clink sounds for one. And something about that got me thinking. A little idea worming in my head, too elusive to grasp for the moment.

“The client – Caissa – she was saying that something about the game felt wrong, right? Has Roberts’ playing style changed over time?”

Ryan frowned and brought up two windows on the screen, two videos of Carlton playing chess a few years back, and one he’d played against Caissa a few days ago.

I rubbed my chin. “He’s a lot more touchy now, isn’t he?”

My brother smirked. “He was kind of sensitive, yeah, but I do think he did a decent job of hiding – ”

“No, I mean like literally touchy.” In the old game, Carlton had his hands interlaced on the table unless it was his turn to make a move. In the most recent one, his hand was almost constantly floating over his side of the board, with him muttering under his breath. He wasn’t touching any pieces unless it was his turn. Apparently, there’s a rule against that. But his fingertips nearly brushed over all of them as he waited.

“Something to do with the pieces…” Ryan muttered. “Was someone marking…? No. It’s hard to imagine what kind of system involving the pieces themselves that would be complex enough to help a grandmaster cheat at the game. What else are we missing?”

His eyes went to the chessboard I was still messing around with. “You said Bose got aggressive with you before you started taunting him about Ms. Veldt. What were you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, he’d heard the rumors that Caissa wanted to accuse someone of cheating, and thought we were involved somehow.” But come to think of it, he had been more wary and suspicious in the beginning than outright ticked off. What had really sparked that change was…

“The magnets.” I said. “I asked if the tournament boards were magnetized, and he went on a tirade about how they weren’t. At the time I thought he was just being snobby, but I do think he was kind of weird about it.”

“Magnetized? Hmm.” Ryan flicked to another page. “Carlton Roberts and his husband own an electronics designing business, don’t they? Though it’s a pretty versatile company. They’d definitely know something about the topic. But how does that translate to a viable cheating strategy?”

I snapped my fingers. “What if they used Bose and his connections to switch out the chessboards with a magnetized one?” Though even as I said it, it didn’t feel right.

But Ryan was still nodding. “No, but we’re definitely on the right track here. Assuming you could modify a chess set to look and feel like a wooden one, but still be able to magnetize it at will… that could be quite useful, especially if the magnets were small and precise enough. He pointed at the set on my lap. “Especially if you could turn the function on and off for specific pieces and parts of the board.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It does, doesn’t it? But I think an accomplice, especially an accomplice who can see the chess position from a distance, could pull it off.” He raised a finger. “Wait a second.” He went back to the grey box, pressing a button, and opened up the CCTV videos on the laptop. “Let’s play these back to the moment where Bose and Roberts were playing chess in the café and… bingo.” He pointed at the screen. “Here. And if I play the moment they come in for next week’s meeting, here again.”

I squinted. Sure enough, in both recordings Ryan was pointed towards a guy in a baseball cap, looking directly at Bose and Roberts’ table while holding some box-like object in his hands. I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but it definitely didn’t seem like something you’d bring along for munching croissants and coffee.

“I’d be willing to swear that’s Ivan Roberts.” Ryan said, with triumph in his voice. “And I’m sure if we bring a picture back to the café, we can get a proper witness to confirm it.”

He must’ve seen my expression. “My guess is that Carlton here needed more than just an inside guy. He needed someone to practice this cheating technique with, make it look natural, and the only way to do that was to practice it playing against a good player.”

“Why not do it somewhere more private?”

“Riskier, I think. Especially when the two of them are sworn rivals. All it takes is one of them being seen coming out of the other’s house to ruin everything. There’s only one thing left.”

He cut out the window showing the camera footage, bringing back up the videos of Carlton’s older and newer tournament games. “Take a look at the older ones. He’s making moves with both hands. Now take a look at the newer one. He’s only using his right hand, and pay attention to his ring finger.”

He zoomed in enough for me to take a good look. Sure enough, his ring finger dipped just a little over a few pieces. “He put a magnet inside his wedding ring?” I said, impressed despite myself. “That’s hardcore.”

“It’s a remarkably simple procedure. Ivan, sitting somewhere conveniently out of public view, lets the AI calculate the ideal move. Then he magnetizes the ring to the board just when it hovers over the right piece, and then over the right square to place it. It would be a fairly obvious ploy in someone else’s hands, but Carlton’s a grandmaster. He has the skill and the practice to use it sparingly, and make it look natural. But that edge is still enough to beat any player at his level or above it.”

“Wow.” I said. “So what now? Just tell Caissa about it?”

Ryan yawned again. “I’d still prefer some physical proof. Luckily, Mr. Bose will be going up against Ms. Veldt tomorrow. He certainly knows enough about this whole arrangement to demand this system for his own use. Hell, I’m willing to bet he helped fund the operation. And that’s great for us, because it means we’ll now have enough to lure him into a trap.”

*

Andy Bose was wearing a ring. I think that was the moment I finally began to relax.

It wasn’t just any ring, either, but a chunky monstrosity studded with flashy stones. If he’d been wearing that last night, his punch would’ve hit a lot harder. Up until this point I hadn’t been skeptical of Ryan’s theory, exactly, but it’d had a castle-in-the-air quality that was only dispelled at this moment.

I snuggled back in my seat, armed with a paper cup of hot chocolate and a bag of warm, sugary beignets. It was a frosty morning by autumnal standards, winter’s first foray into the year. Caissa Veldt was sitting demurely on her side of the table, and while they were a few others preparing to play, I got the sense that this would be the one everyone was watching. It had taken us a precious few minutes to convince her to agree to the plan, but in the end she’d relented. Carlton Roberts and his husband were both nowhere to be seen, despite Caissa insisting they would be here. That tracked if they wanted to press buttons on their fancy cheating remote without any inconvenient witnesses.

There was something vaguely chess-like about the whole setup, manipulating your central piece from a safe distance away. But I’m sure my old professor would say that metaphor wouldn’t stand to scrutiny. Who cares about what she thinks, anyway?

Ryan stood behind my seat with his hands in his jacket, a pale blue scarf around his neck. He reached out and cruelly stole a beignet from my bag. Somehow, he managed to munch through it without getting powdered sugar on his fingers. Witchcraft, I tell you. “I’m going to go look for Mr. Roberts.” He told me, still chewing. “They can’t be that far. Make sure things go smoothly here.”

I can’t imagine what he thought I could do if things went south, but before I could voice any objections he was gone. The matches were set to begin, and Caissa and Andy were both staring at each other from across the table, and something about the look must’ve made her decide to make her move early. She reached into her handbook and pulled something out. It was a chessboard. More precisely, it was Ryan’s pocket chessboard, which had been the only one we could give her on short notice.

“This man was planning to cheat with this board.” She declared in a soft voice that hushed the entire stadium. “I insist that you replace it. If there are no spare chess sets available, then we will play with the one I have brought.”

Now technically, this was against regulations. But I had to imagine most regulations didn’t take into account situations like this. It began a frenzy of argument surrounding the board, with Caissa simply sitting in silence and glaring at her opponent.

If Andy had kept a cooler head, he would’ve laughed it off and let the board be replaced. He would’ve played and probably lost the game, but would’ve walked out of there with a salvaged reputation. Maybe even boomeranging the effect of the accusation back onto Caissa. Even in the board on the table was taken apart, he might’ve had room to claim deniability.

The wrench thrown in the works was Caissa staring very pointedly at his ring. That was the tipping point that made him fold. He stood up abruptly from the table, breathing heavily, and ran out of the room.

See, this is why Ryan says criminals work better with less imagination. There’s no one on the planet who can screw with you better than you.

I took a deep breath and followed Andy out, just managing to glimpse him bounding up the stairs. With most of the chaos in the actual stadium, it made sense no one else had caught up with him yet, but where the hell was Ryan?

Andy Bose was in much better shape than I was, a fact that became clear once we both went up the staircase. I was panting heavily once I got to the top, bending over and clutching my knees. “Look, man.” I gasped. “You’re only going to look bad acting like this. You cheated; big deal. Did you bet a lot of money on this game or something? If so, I’m told bankruptcy laws are pretty generous around here.” Part of me was questioning why I’d followed him in the first place, but a good look at him on the roof answered that immediately.

Bose was still at least five feet from the edge, but he was giving the skyline a giddy, manic stare that made his intentions unmistakable. “I turned thirty last year, you know.” He told me. “Which means it’s about twenty-five years now since my Pops sat down and put that board in front of me. He wasn’t even any good at the game, you know. Didn’t stop him from pushing it on me every chance he got. ‘Is D4 a black square, Anand?’, or ‘where’s the check, Anand?’ or ‘did you memorize all twelve variations of the Italian yet, Anand?’”

I raised my hands carefully, as if approaching a grizzly bear. “Well, I’m sorry about your Dad, dude. But I’m sure there are healthier ways to deal – ”

“But I did it anyway! I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. None of us did! We played and we memorized. We all fought and we ran and we crawled to overtake each other, to bump up that rating a little higher, to play just a little bit more perfectly. All for nothing! The game is already solved! There is already a perfect player meshed in all the computer code, and they’ve been perfect for about thirty years at this point! Thirty years, and we still put ourselves through all this crap!”

His hands trembled violently, fingers curling like talons. “If it’s all a scam, if it’s all been a joke, if none of this ever meant anything, then why don’t I deserve a bigger piece of the pie, huh? Why couldn’t I be the one at the top? But that’s all gone now. You couldn’t even let me live the lie, could you?”

Ryan always had a knack for talking people down, finding just the right words to make people think twice when they needed to most. But my thoughts blurred when I tried to think, my mouth desert dry when I opened it to speak.

“I’m sorry.” I repeated. “But you know, if it makes you feel any better, it’s not like you’re the only one going through this. I mean, computers are generating whole novels and paintings now. You’re far from the only one who feels like they’re being replaced.”

“Replaced, huh?” He cackled, and his body tensed in a way that told me he was going to make a run for the edge.

“But, uh, but what I’m saying is that being perfect is overrated. You know, when you write, um, when you play stupid moves, when you make mistakes, that’s what opens up some of the most interesting possibilities. Sometimes without those flaws we wouldn’t have discovered so many things. Like how stuff like fried rice and French toast are best made without fresh ingredients. We wouldn’t have gotten that awesome stuff if we didn’t have stale bread or old rice in the first place!”

I got the feeling he wasn’t emotionally connecting with my comparison. If anything, Bose looked angrier.

“Look, everybody worries that they don’t have anything new to give the world. But if you can’t play with perfect strategy, play it imperfectly. Nobody makes mistakes the way humans do. Nobody makes mistakes the way you do.”

I think something in there got through to him, because he cracked a smile at the end. “That’s nice. Really nice. Wish someone said it to me earlier, though.”

He ran towards the edge of the roof.

What I did next I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I wouldn’t even recommend it to me, and you guys know how special I am. Shooting a moving target quickly is hard, and while I aimed to hit Bose’s kneecap, I shot through his ankle instead. It did manage to get him to hit the ground before he went over the ledge.

Part of me afterwards was worried about getting a lawsuit. Yet Andy Bose was in no position to sue anyone by the time the police got to him, a sobbing, quivering mess that had to be sent to a mental institution. Last I heard, he’s still in there.

After all that drama, Bose and Roberts both got hit with a ten-year ban from tournament chess and not much else. Surprise, surprise, it’s hard to prosecute somebody for cheating at a board game.Caissa apparently is still doing just great at her career, most recently becoming a World Championship finalist. So that’s a bright spot, at least.

Carlton Roberts (who, by the way, I never did get to meet personally) had already patented some of the magnetic gadgetry he’d used to construct the fake wooden chessboard. He and his husband cheerfully used the media clout to sell several successful new products, including, yes, the special chessboard. Ryan actually bought one of them after a year or two, and it still sits on his bedroom dresser.

Funny how these things go, isn’t it?