Chapter 39 Nina

Chapter 39

?Nina

The entire floor space of the third room is a chessboard.

Nina enters, cautiously, stepping from one large empty square to the next. Each lights up as her weight hits it.

This room is clearly A Game of Chess, though Nina doubts it will be like any she has played before.

"Take your position on a3. The game will commence shortly."

Nina looks across the room to the a3 square. This is Anderssen's Opening. They are going to ask her to play the Anderssen/Morphy game.

Nina stops in her tracks, a cold chill running through her, because she knows with absolute certainty that she does not remember the moves or script for that game. If making it out of this room relies on that knowledge, then Nina is as good as dead.

Across the room the entry door seals and the lighting state brightens.

"Welcome, Nina, to A Game of Chess. This game requires you to remain on Anderssen's Opening as long as possible. Stay on a3."

With that a low whirring sound begins to fill the room. At first Nina can't tell what exactly is happening, but as the first set of squares across the room loses their lights her eyes make sense of the scene. The opposite wall is moving toward her. The room is closing in.

Nina's eyes scan the room for a screen with more instructions, but there is none. There are no questions, there is no task to complete.

"Bathsheba," Nina calls, raising her voice above the hydraulic whir, "what am I supposed to do? What are the questions?"

Bathsheba's voice flickers back to life. "Stay on a3."

Nina looks down at her square, her mind rapidly scrolling through every possible meaning of that sentence. Is it a clue, a riddle, an anagram? She rearranges the words in her head quickly, watching as the wall approaches her, five squares away now and getting closer.

But nothing makes sense. The letters do not rearrange in any reasonable order. Stay on a3:

Y Sonata 3

3 Astony

Nasty an 3

It's not an anagram; it's simply an instruction.

But should she follow it or not, can she trust it or not?

At that moment another door opens opposite her at the other end of the board.

Again, Bathsheba reminds her, "Stay on a3."

But the wall is closing in. It's three squares away now and Nina has absolutely no idea what the trick of this room is yet—and time is very clearly running out.

She looks down at her lit square and the five squares surrounding it. She looks up at the open door and cautiously extends a foot forward toward the square in front of her.

"Do not advance. Stay on a3." Bathsheba's voice kicks in, causing her to jump.

Nina considers not moving but the wall is getting closer every second and if she doesn't move soon, she might not make it across the space in time to get to the door at all.

Slowly she lowers her foot onto the square in front of hers. And nothing happens. The square lights up and she gingerly shifts her weight onto it. Then she tries the next and the next and the next, growing in confidence with every jump, until the wall brushes her elbows as she leaps from the room and reaches the relative safety of the vestibule beyond.

Nina turns to look back into the room as her a3 square disappears and the moving wall meets the stationary one. If she had stayed, she would be dead now, dead or severely injured. She needs to remember that sometimes things really aren't that complex.

She watches and after a few seconds the wall begins to reset to its original position before the door closes behind her.

Chess is a game of strategy, but sometimes the best strategy is just to run.