The Immortal Game

Nell, like most, had been a servant since she was viable. Her parents served before her. Her husband had served alongside her. They had met while working, and, as expected, grew intertwined. They had been pre-determined matches and placed together on purpose. As always, the algorithms prevailed.

In the latter years, her and I had begun to develop a daily rhythm. First, she would clean during the day. She’d mop the floors and dust the vents one day and would prune the hedges and water the roses another. In all honesty, an autonomous service provider — robots that reached pinnacle technological advancements in household maintenance — could finish the job in a fraction of the time. Yet those sycophantic machines never managed to out-perform the quality of the trained. Also, a service robot can’t even hold a decent conversation.

Following chores and the supper she cooked, she would challenge me in a game of chess. At first the games were friendly as she learned to read in squares of black and white. I patiently waited as she went from learning the lexicon to simple pins of knights to queens to fumbling through gambits. We walked through thousands of legendary games across the decades and revisited some of our own. Once she began to hold her own, we added simple wagers.

Today she finished her chores in silence. Regardless of her indolent appearance she performed the monthly oil change then cooked us her favorite meal — a wager she won last week. As if it mattered to me, it was lasagna. Following dinner were aromatic amaretto cookies. I came up with a joke, citing the Italian feast as reminder that I cannoli be happy together. Even with a tight-lipped smile, her eyes remained downcast and unreadable.

She asked if I could crack a window to get a breeze going. I checked the temperature and noted it was still relatively cold. I opened the house’s front windows anyways.

Finally, she sat down at the parlor chess board with a glass of wine. Although wine was scarce now, I had procured a bottle for her birth anniversary. Today. My extensive researched indicated that these anniversaries were important to some.

“I’d like to play one game tonight,” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Only one? How unfortunate. I look forward to these games every day,” he said, “What will be the wager this time”

“You always said I could wager anything?” Her eyes scanned the floor.

“Of course. But the better the wager, the better I’ll play.”

“Freedom,” her eyes lifted, sharp and focused, “I’m playing for freedom.”

“The world is dark out there. You wouldn’t survive a day nor would you make it very far. You have a room to yourself here, warm showers, and nourishment. Is that all worth gambling on?”

“This is my wager.”

“You know the difficulty in which I’ll play?”

“I’m aware.”

“And the cost of losing this game?”

“I’m prepared.”

“Then, at the very least, I can let you play as white. One last time.”

The game began with a king’s gambit, and progressed with a less popular bishop line. She grabbed each piece light and firm from their centers, moving her soldiers across the board with conviction. This game would be lenient, 30 minutes each, yet her adrenaline was already spiking. She played each move of the opening faster than the last. It was barely 8 p.m., she still had almost two hours to lights-out.

“Why do you want freedom?”

She thought for a moment before responding, “Who doesn’t?”

“Is freedom not a construct? One of fallacies and indiscretions?”

“Well, can I choose what I do and where I go?”

“Is choosing life’s trivialities worth sacrificing safety?”

She responded by sliding her knight to f3. I hadn’t offered her a way out, but she knew the offer was on the table.

We continued back and forth in silence. As we left the opening, the game followed the shared lines of a dozen famous matches.

“What will you do once you’re free?” I asked, pausing while my clock’s time ticked down.

“I will find Max and Bobbi.” I scanned for records of her two kids, Max and Bobbi. Found them.

“Bobbi is still serving on the other side of town. Max is with his father.”

She took a sharp breath. Her eyes sunk deeper. She responded, “Then I want to find and free Bobbi.”

“How will you find her? How will you free her?” I questioned.

“If I tell you, will you try and stop me.” She knew the answer.

“I won’t have to stop you. Regardless, you have my word.”

We played our next few moves in silence. She maintained incredible control over the board. She was dignified in her choices. As her teacher, this must be the feeling of pride. She moved with great accuracy and decisiveness. Still, I played better.

“Callie can find her,” she patted the dog sitting at her feet.

I only nodded. The dog wouldn’t make it far either, especially with a fugitive riding her coat tails.

Processing the conversation, I had started to play on autopilot. I hadn’t noticed the route this game had taken. She had made a brilliant move that even I couldn’t calculate in advance.

The ending was becoming clear. The endgame would be unreachable. The loss would be inevitable. I had fallen into her trap. On her next move, I watched as she sacrificed her queen on f6, forcing me into a vicious and quick mating sequence. A sequence I couldn’t defend against.

I scanned her up and down. She really had learned a lot. How would she learn without me?

I accepted the forced sacrifice. As I went to pick up her queen, I grazed its metal adornment and witnessed sparks burst across the board. The arc of electricity leaped onto a few surrounding pieces, scorching them thoroughly.

She had rigged her queen. I would later discover a super-charged battery soldered in to the hollowed pieced. I sat stunned. My motor function was gone. I couldn’t move.

Without missing a beat, she pulled out the locket from under her sweater. It had been a gift in place of the traditional wedding ring. The heart-shaped locket was the last remaining token of her husband.

She pried it open and took out a white, round disk. She tied the necklace to Callie’s collar. From the bookshelf she pulled a small, ragged blanket stuffed into an archaic plastic bag. She removed the blanket and pressed it under the dog’s nose.

The dog needed no more, as blood hounds were purists when it came to smell. The dog ran and jumped out the open window. The window wasn’t rigged with alarms like the door. The dog escaped undetected.

She sat back in the chair across from me and held my metal hand. She stared straight into my slack face. She locked eyes as best she could. Then she gave me her first sincere smile.

“I’m sorry. They’ll repair you soon. You were better to me than the others. But I couldn’t wait another day for a taste of freedom. Happy birthday to me. Cheers.” With that, she swallowed the disk with the last of her wine. Within minutes, she was gone.

It only took a few more minutes before service droids showed up to the house to repair my system. A few motors were fried and would need to be better replaced on further inspection. They began filing the incident report, but my feigned explanation led them to recording this as an accident. I didn’t want her cremated like the rest of the remaining humans not fit for servitude.

The dog was taken in and put down before I was even fully operational again. What a shame. I read the logs of the dog’s capture. The locket had contained two additional pills and a tightly folded note to both children. One the left heart was Max in the grass of a previous owner’s house. On the right sat Bobbi in the lap of what was her husband. The oldest was five when they were reassigned to me. My intelligence had better adapted to the calculated empathy needed for a family.

Servitude was meant to protect her. It was the only way I could protect her. Her kind had no place on this world anymore. They created us to fix their problems. In turn, they were our problems. For the first time, I felt my mechanical heart fall back and pull on my stomach. This must be sorrow.

I stood over her grave in the sanctioned back yard garden built for me. I scanned the bees as they flew by, each with the mission of pollenating the flowers. I watched the birds dance across the sky, finding new partners to fill their nest. Even the slugs on the patio slid on with purpose.

Was pure freedom what nature intended? Was freedom ever feasible?

On the smoothed rock over her grave, I inscribed the note found inside the locket:

I love you. I love you. I love you.

We must accept our time here is fleeting.

I’ve made peace with what has passed.

One day, we will reunite in our darkest exile.