12 Miles Below

Book 6. Chapter 46: Chessmaster

A minimalist table with a geometric chair waited before me, and sitting on top was a chessboard with a row of white pieces facing my way. The request was implicit.

And on the other side, a throne similar to her prior one rose from the ground, streams of data flowing into it, solidifying into white marble with harsh edges.

The lady clearly didn’t ever want to sit on anything other than something opulent.

There’s one issue with my current situation: I don’t play chess.

Not to say chess wasn’t ever played in the clan, Winterscars in particular found it a family tradition to play chess. Likely for the same reason Relinquished had agreed to play - dramatics. I knew the rules, technically, but other than a few games against a cousin who’d clearly been into beating down new players, that was all the experience I had.

On the other hand, it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to win. Just distract long enough to find a way out of this.

“Gracious of you to let me go first.” I said, taking a seat on the odd looking chair. The pieces waiting before me were equally geometric and simple in nature. Only their location on the table helped me identify them. “I thought white and purple were your colors.”

“A god does not require any advantages, least of all against a pawn.” She answered while taking a measured seat on the throne, legs folding over one another, sending a dismissing wave of her slender hand once she was well seated. “Begin.”

She was way too far to reach any of the pieces from that oversized throne, but I got a feeling she didn’t need to physically grab anything with a hand here.

At the same time, I started a full search for where the unity fractal could be in the real world. The terminal was right behind me, and Drakonis could help me hobble around to find it if it's elsewhere.

But the terminal was my first target and probably where it actually was. It was the origin point where I launched my soul out into the digital sea.

In the virtual world, Relinquished tilted her head by a fraction, and a matching black piece on the board moved on its own a small spot ahead.

Now that I was safe playing the game, it was time for part two of trying to wiggle extra free time while I ransacked through the terminal. Talking in between moves during chess was about as stereotypical as it got. All I had to do was get her chatting. “You play often?” I asked.

“Chess is a human invention.” She said with a dismissive wave, not quite answering the question. “Did you know it was once considered impossible to master by my kind? They believed no machine could ever play with any kind of intelligence. How dreadfully wrong your predecessors were upon that notion. No, little Deathless, I do not play chess. I play my own game at my own whim.”

“So then… this is your first time playing chess? Want me to teach you the rules? We can have a mock game right now before the real one. I don’t mind.”

She stared me down from her throne, an eyebrow rising up. “I have granted you a stay of execution. Do not annoy me further with your attempts to stall. It is your turn. Play. Or die.”

A timer appeared next to me, floating in the air. Counting down. I didn’t need to ask what would happen once it reached zero. I gulped, then moved the bishop piece out close to her lines, but not close enough to be destroyed. The timer reset automatically.

A knight piece moved in response, silently phasing through the virtual pieces until it stood ominously at the front line. Relinquished tutted. “At this rate, I will defeat you in twenty four turns.”

“I literally only moved two pieces, and you’re already psychoanalyzing me? I’m calling your bluff on this one. A goddess you are, but you can’t see into the future.”

“Can’t I?” She asked, smiling.

I moved my knight out. “Ratshit. If you could see the future, you’d have already won all this.”

“Haven’t I already? The world moves to my whims.”

Technically, she had. And from the archives, she’d wiped out humanity multiple times already. But explaining how I knew that would probably buy time in the worst possible way. I redoubled my efforts searching through the terminal. My first target: The soul fractal I’d etched on murdershrimp’s radiator plate, the one I’d welded into the terminal. As for Relinquished, “That humans are still running around means you haven’t won. Simple logic.”

“Then, what would happen when I do?” She asked, a finger flicking through the air, as a black pawn moved in response. “You’ve spoken with my sister. And given you understand I am here to destroy the human race, I am certain Tsuya must have told you my true origins. And my original directive.”

She had. Relinquished was a tiny evil chatbot who’d been given a few additional video game plugins and any other freeware scrap from the golden age to make her seem hyper competent compared to regular tech illiterate hicks, and then a grand directive to eliminate the human race while making the cultists think she’s a goddess. Compared to everything else from that age, she was scrap code. But an extremely lucky set of scrap code.

“You’re supposed to win the game first before I tell you anything.” I moved my knight again and a black queen piece instantly flashed diagonally, erasing it from existence, the first dead piece on the board.

Oh.

Scrapshit. I made a mistake, forgetting the first rule of chess isn’t how things move. It’s to always cover your pieces.

“A poor move.” She sounded equally disappointed. “Although I shouldn’t be so surprised. You are human after all. Even my makers made poor choices with their wishes.”

“I’m just on edge, since, you know, my entire soul is at stake here.”

She blinked, then leaned forward in her throne, a smile deepening on her features. “How interesting. A lie.”

My blood froze.

She gave a light tittering laugh, “You believe your soul isn’t at stake in this game. Has being Deathless warped your sense of self? Do you believe the worst a god can do is kill you? That you’ll simply start over again from the nearest of my sister’s pillars?”

“My body’s still in the real world. This is just the digital world.” That was technically true. I kept the rest of my mouth shut. She could catch lies like Feathers could, so I needed to just speak through implications.

“And you believe that would save you somehow? From me? Come now, little Deathless. Nothing escapes my direct attention.”

“I’m more surprised I’m even worth your direct attention. Or that you managed to find me all the way in the middle of nowhere. Even I don’t know where I am.” I said, mentally going over my short life and wondering where the scrap I’d gone so off track that the singular goddess in command of every machine in existence knew my name and was playing a game of chess with me. “How did you manage that, if I might ask?”

It had to be the ping request I’d sent Wrath, which meant she was monitoring her? Or was it just an automated response? But why pay so much attention to something so small like this, and ignore messages from her own Feathers about the situation? All I did was send a challenge note to Wrath with my coordinates. Why would she pay attention to that of all things?

It didn’t make sense. There was something else at play here. I moved a pawn up, trying to set something up to chase her queen off.

In the meantime I ransacked through the main soul fractal I'd welded into the terminal. Murdershrimp might have had a backdoor etched somewhere in there without my notice. Occult fractals only lit up when electricity was run through them, and if I'd etched a soul fractal on top, that would likely show up first in both the real world and the occult sight.

“What a bold question to ask in your position.” She chuckled, hand covering her mouth. A black pawn moved ahead in answer. “You are not the first Deathless I’ve given my attention to. But you are the second. Consider yourself honored, Winterscar. You stand upon the same ground as the greatest of your kind before you.”

I could almost tell what my lines were for her script. She’s dangling it for maximum effect. “Who was it?” I asked as I forced her queen to move with a final pawn, this time keeping my pieces protected.

“Why, the very first Deathless Tsuya ever made. Do you know what I did to him, Winterscar?”

A knight traditionally beats a queen, and right now her queen was playing havoc in the frontlines. So I put the knight out into play. “No, but I’ll take a guess you’re about to tell me.”

Relinquished smiled. The kind of smile a cat would give to a cornered rat. “Oh, nothing of great importance. Your predecessor still lives. I merely rivened his soul in half.” The black bishop escaped her lines, following her gaze as it entered the centerfield in response. “But worry not. As you concluded, Deathless cannot be killed. Not even I have discovered the secret. I can’t completely end you, Winterscar. But I can remove you from the playing field at my leisure.”

“So that’s what you did to him? Tossed him off the board?”

“Effectively. My sister was quick to rectify that flaw as she does anytime I discover a means to squash your kind. As for your predecessor, he is wandering among the lowest strata, lucid enough to remember his ultimate goal, but stripped of everything else that made him who he was. A fitting punishment for something that cannot die a natural death, would you disagree?”

So. She’s threatening to rip my soul in half and leave me half dead. I gave a nervous laugh, the kind of semi-unhinged laugh that I couldn’t quite stuff down. I don’t know if I’d actually just die, or if something worse would happen. I’d also stared down death a few times already, and in some hilarious morbid way this seemed a lot less painful compared to the other ways. “What did he do to deserve that kind of attention from you? Other than being the first Deathless.”

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She inclined her head, waiting for me to move before she’d continue talking. The timer ticked away, so I moved a pawn further up.

“He was a dear friend of my sisters for one.” She said, as a black bishop quickly moved out into the midfield. “And I find it exhilarating to take her favorite toys and thoroughly dispose of them.”

I answered by getting my own bishop in range to take hers. “That’s all? Seems like a lot of Deathless would fall in the same category.”

No luck with the welded section, my soul had searched up and down the inside multiple times now. No sign of any other fractal besides the one Journey had etched in originally. Maybe inside the terminal itself as a hidden trap? I started from the slice top and began looking through every small section.

“You’re right.” Relinquished tutted. “He was guilty of a far greater crime than simply being a pawn of my sister, something all other Deathless haven’t been able to do since: He was in my way.”

A black bishop zipped across the board, striking my pawn, dematerializing it even while I had it protected. “You’re trading a bishop just to kill my pawn? Really?” That was a lopsided trade.

“I have calculated the move to my benefit. If you could understand why, I would have played differently. What you see on the board is what I require you to see.”

That was ominous. But she was supposed to be. My own pawn went to destroy her exposed bishop in the next move. True to her word, she didn’t seem at all bothered, eyes not even looking at the board, more out into the distance.

“My sister’s first champion was intelligent, strong, powerful. A born warrior and leader. Of a quality none of your kind have ever matched again. Humanity as a whole rallied around him. Where he went, victory followed.” Relinquished continued while the pieces moved. “If this world ever had a hero, it was him. But you and I already know, ‘tis only in children’s tales that the hero always wins. Reality is far more… cutthroat. I still stand, while he does not even know his own name. That will be your fate as well. And the fate of all those who follow after you, all of those who inevitably stand here before me. Each of you, weaker than the last.”

“Preparing already for more humans in the future, huh? So that means for all your power, posturing and threats, you can’t completely snuff us out.”

I tried to move my pawns to threaten her queen again. In seconds, she’d taken another trade in between pawns, then moved her queen into range of my king. “Check.” She said. “And you fail to understand the true problem I face, nor of your purpose here. My sister told you my original directive, you should be able to deduce more from that. Do better.”

“Deal’s a deal, until you checkmate my king, I ain’t saying anything about Tsuya.” I said, folding my arms on my chest.

A moment later I was thrown far up into the air, and slammed right back down, breaking the table and chair. The whole board was ripped apart, pieces flying everywhere and I felt my virtual ribs ache. My hand got under me, and I slowly pushed myself back up.

“I did warn you to do better, little deathless. I expect more from you.”

Did she just rage quit? I looked up and found the table perfectly whole, even the chess pieces were rematerializing, exactly where they’d been left behind.

Nope, game’s still on.

I brushed off my legs, grabbed the chair and took my time to sit down.

The pain had distracted me from my search. But only in the way a stubbed toe would. This was a virtual world, pain wasn’t permanent. I just had to keep her entertained while I narrowed it down. Halfway through the terminal now, the bottom section was wider and went underground, but I wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned. “I’m not about to give anything you want without a fight.” I said. “And if I annoyed you enough to make you lash out, I consider it a small win on my side. Angering a god, implies I’ve done something significant enough.”

That should cover my back for a bit. Frame it as my win, and Relinquished would try to avoid that.

“Is that so?” She smiled, and it felt like she was genuinely amused at that.

I moved my king silently, and she had her queen rip another pawn into pieces instead. Except I’d been protecting that pawn with my own queen. That can’t be right, she’d just put her queen right into the chopping block.

A closer look showed me her queen was equally protected by her knight further in. So destroying it with my own queen would mean she’d take my queen in response with that knight. A mutual trade.

I wasn’t as skilled with chess and it was obvious to me, so her lack of a queen on her end would sting more than a loss of my own queen.

I tapped the black piece, “Just going to give up your queen for a pawn? Really? Why?”

“Queens are powerful pieces. And yet, I find the game remains... on rails, with them on the board.” She said lightly. “Sometimes, it is better to lose the centerpiece, in order to force the game to change. Go on, little Deathless. Give me a challenge.”

“You’ve never played chess before.” I countered. “How do you have preferences like that in the first place?”

Relinquished didn’t answer, she just watched me with a mild smile.

I played my queen and struck her own off the board. She destroyed mine with her knight an instant later, true to her word. She’s toying with me, I knew that. “Did you predict we’d end up without queens?” I asked. “Aiming for that this whole time?”

I traded a rook for a knight next, which I wasn’t sure was a good move. My side of the field was getting real empty, but her side was too at this point.

“I’ve predicted quite a few things.” She said, waving a hand. “Perhaps you’ll learn yourself. But, as everything, it will be too late when you do.”

She’s being dramatic. That’s what she’s built for, I had to keep reminding myself. She’s a chatbot, but she is a chatbot from the golden age. If they wanted a dramatic goddess, they would have exactly that. This is all to rattle me before she lops my head off.

In her hand, the white queen that’d been removed from play appeared, and she began to play with it, observing it from different angles. “I am a god, little deathless. But gods are entities with rules that bind them. Can you guess mine?”

The timer paused. She wanted me to answer this, and I took the bait for what it was, redoubling my efforts to search through the bottom floor of the terminal with the extra time.

She tapped her hand on the throne, clearly demanding an answer soon. I thought it through while I cleared off the last section of the bottom terminal. Nothing.

As for her… she was unable to think of the world as anything other than a dramatic play, that’s the main flaw she had. But she wouldn’t be self-aware of that, what she would be aware of is more literal rules that bound her.

Of which, there’s only one thing that would bind an entity like her. The same way her main mission to kill off humanity had always remained the same. “You can’t change, can you?” I said. “What your original directive was.”

She smiled. The sort of smile that told me she’d gotten me in some way. Then she set down the queen piece onto some invisible plane by her throne, where it promptly vanished. “You’re right. It is quite the conundrum, isn’t it? I am trapped, operating only within my original scope. To teach humanity the true meaning of despair. It is part of my directive. Word for word.” She looked far off, away from the board and the game. “But words are fickle things, Winterscar. To teach means I must have an audience. And the audience must be humanity. Thus, humanity needs to exist in order to witness my hand destroy them. And yet, once destroyed, they no longer exist as witnesses. Only I would remain, in a world where I cannot teach humanity despair any longer. That goes against my original directive.”

Her eyes turned to watch me from their corner. “Your greatest defense against complete eradication is one small loophole. One tiny thread. One thread neither I, nor any under my command, can unbind.”

Nothing in the terminal. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find anything in there other than the concept of metal, circuits, and machinery. The mites paid heavy attention to detail on how the whole terminal worked, but the upper sections were mostly for decoration. And there weren't any signs of the occult there.

I was running out of places to look for the hidden unity fractal that bound my soul to this plane. Starting to get worried here.

But I kept a brave face inside the virtual plane, sitting back in my chair, with my best unimpressed look. “Ah, I get it now. What you’re really after. You know, if you wanted to make a bargain with me this whole time to help free you, you could have just come out and asked instead of all this monologuing. But you picked the worst possible target, because I’ll never help or work for you. Never. And you can tell that’s not a lie.”

She shook her head lightly, and smiled further. “I had hoped you would say that. If you had been willing to free me from my shackles, why, you would be no different from a black pawn under my command. But, no. You serve a different purpose.”

“And that purpose would be?”

“Do you remember the rules gods like myself must follow?” She left that float for a moment, making a white pawn appear in her hand. She examined the piece, same as she had all the other pieces. Then crushed it in her hand, and let the pieces fall. “You have seven turns before I win. You will have nothing but pawns and your king, and I will squash you against my rooks.”

She mentions rules, and then tells me how she’ll win. “Is that one of your rules then?” I asked. “You have to gloat first on how you’ll win before you can? Because that’s what a villain would do?”

“Not gloating. Foreshadowing, little Deathless. And now that I have foreshadowed my plans, I am allowed to execute them.”

I waited for her to say something more, but she stayed silent, the timer on my side ticking down, forcing me to make my moves.

On the other side, I’d given up trying to find anything inside the terminal. What if she got something on Journey itself somehow? My gaze turned inwards, scanning through all the metal plates and the hundreds of fractals I’d inscribed. Searching for the one piece I hadn’t.

We played two more turns over that time, up until I fucked up again and lost my own rook to her bishop. Which left me with exactly what she’d told me I’d be left with.

“My, you seem to have run out of pieces. Only pawns and your king left, how… unexpected. Worry not, you still have five turns before the game ends. Check.”

I moved my king. She swapped her own king with a rook with a wave of her hand.

It was over already, nothing I could possibly pull off with just pawns and a king. I was circling the drain here, but that’s fine. She’s monologuing, while I was slowly narrowing down where my escape really was.

Time was up. I had to find the fractal now or die.

Not the terminal. Not the armor. Where was it?

It had to be connected to my soul in some way because it tied me to this realm. But I’d been able to move my soul out of the terminal, and out of Journey’s soul fractal, and it still followed me somehow.

And the only way it could do that… I turned my sight further inward. Past Journey. Into my own soul fractal. My soul observing itself, tendrils probing across the concept of my being.

And that’s when I found it. A small, glowing fractal. Not in the physical world. Not in my mind even. She fucking twisted my very soul into the shape itself. Not all of it, only a small section, like a stamp frozen in place. A concept existing within another concept. And reality could still recognize it that far deep?

Holy scrapshit, was that even possible?

I reached a tendril down to the fractal within my essence, testing the water. If Relinquished noticed that I was onto her even a slight bit, I was probably dead.

She destroyed another pawn with her rook in the meantime, bringing it out into the midfield. Which left me with a disturbingly low amount of forces: Three pawns and my king.

“Check. One turn left.”

Two of the pawns were on both ends of the map, basically useless. The last one wasn’t in any position to do anything either. Inside the real world, I hesitated. I found her fractal, and I had to be very careful with my next steps here.

I moved my king out of the way, and realized I’d run into a double rook pillar trap the moment I let go of my piece.

No time for caution, defeat was right on my heels. I touched on the fractal, lightly, probing. And what I found within wasn’t just the concept of unity.

It was her. Relinquished. She was in there.

Wrath had always said each time the fractal was lit, she’d feel Relinquished there with her, observing. She was anywhere that fractal was.

I realized why that was.

She’d used its power to unite herself with the fractal. Scraps raining from above, it could have even been the very first thing she did.

“Checkmate.” She smiled. Her rook moved across the map, taking the far right side. Then she leaned back into her throne. “It seems time has run out for you, little Deathless. So then, what shall you do now?”

“Try buying more.” I said. Which wasn’t a lie.

“My, rather transparent of you. But, as you’ll find, no matter how much of it humans try and hold onto, it will never be enough. I will take what is owed now.”

She rose from her throne, and the chessboard faded into sediment, blowing off into the wind. I felt my feet leave the ground as a force grabbed my collar and pulled me up.

I didn’t have any more time to study the fractal within my soul. Connected to Relinquished or not, no matter how powerful she was, all I needed to do was erase the pattern. Could I be fast enough to both destroy that fractal and then cut my connection?

Did I have a choice?

I took the dive. A tendril of my will rose up, right where the unity fractal had been etched within my soul. The pattern was instantly disrupted.

With the unity fractal dissolved, I felt the occult connection snap between my digital avatar and my actual body. I still controlled the avatar the same as I had before, but it was the remote feeling once again.

I didn’t hesitate for a second, terminating the connection.

The last view of Relinquished standing before her throne wasn’t one of anger, like I’d expected.

No outrage at having her prey escape her grasp. Not even surprise.

She was smiling. A knowing, predatory flicker of a thing, so small I almost missed it if her final visage wasn’t already burned in my mind long after I opened my eyes back in the real world.

And that chilled me more than anything in the world.

Because it looked as if I was doing exactly as she’d planned.

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