chesspolitik | The game - our one true guiding light

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The game - our one true guiding light

Strange island happenings might come and go, but nothing could keep Anatoly away from his routine. Tea in the morning and chess in the afternoon until he was gently reminded by someone to put the board away and get something to eat. It wasn't exciting, perhaps, but it was something all his own and he was finally free to keep it.

This afternoon, he was contemplating Kasparov once more, determined to wrest every bit of knowledge he could from the grandmaster. The chess board had been set up to reflect the particular game he was studying, and he had a listing of the play-by-play next to him. The man was brilliant, and it was a deep shame that he would most likely never meet him.

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"Far future? How far do you mean?" Anatoly tilted his head curiously. The underaged monitoring system Bart had mentioned sounded very much like something the Soviets would have fully supported, yet he knew they had fallen. Surely, they could not have risen again?

"About a thousand years," Bart said, thoughtfully. "It's the same, and not. But there's only one government on Earth."

"One government?" Anatoly moved his knight out of danger with a frown. "How did that come about or is that something I should not ask?"

"United Planets kinda made decisiveness among humanity a moot point when there were plenty of other aliens out there to be wary of, I guess," Bart said. "I don't know, Maybe my mother's side of the family managed something the way Lex Luthor managed to become president. I only spent a few weeks there when I wasn't in the VR chamber."

Pushing a pawn to pin the knight, he opened a fresh line of attack for his white-square bishop, his king right in the path. "Check."

The history was interesting if a bit frightening but Anatoly's attention was consumed by the more important revelation that he was in check. He had been so careful but not enough, it seemed. He would find a way out, of that much he was certain but he knew he couldn't afford any more mistakes.

He considered the board thoughtfully, playing out the various possibilities before moving.

One of the more important things about wargames, even abstracted ones like chess, was leaving your opponent uncertain of where your true objective lay. In this case, it was a feint, forcing Anatoly to the defense to see which of the choices he'd picked. Bart knew he couldn't have forced the end of the game with that particular check, and was more than willing to relent for the time being.

"I don't think about it much. Kon wasn't a part of that time, or the rest of my friends. So I came back. I'm sure the Science Police didn't mind," he commented idly.

"The Science Police?" Anatoly looked up at that, his hand still on his rook. "I hope you will forgive me for saying that the future world does not sound very...welcoming."

He glanced back down at the board and moved, leaning back in his chair after he had done so. it was time to take the fight to Bart. He thought he saw a way to victory and he needed to set up the pieces first, before the way could get closed off.

"That's what the Legion was created for," Bart said, with a laugh. "To keep the dreams of our time alive in that future. Reminding people there's more to life."

"I see," Anatoly murmured, though he wasn't sure he did. He cast his mind back to something Bart had said earlier. "You and Kon are friends, then?"

"For almost his whole life," Bart said, smiling a little. "We hated each other the first time we met, but that was pretty much a given. It was the three of us, really. Impulse, Superboy, and Robin. Rob and I have kinda changed handles, but there really isn't that much room for movement in the S family. And there's pretty much always been more than one Flash."

He moved, trying to work out just what was going on in the grandmaster's head as the game continued.

Cassie and Kon had both attempted to explain the superhero business to Anatoly but without much success. He understood the need for a code name and all the rest of it, but what was beyond him was why they would ever want to do such a thing. Still, he respected it was something they cared very much about and was equal to the passion he felt for chess.

He glanced down at the board, weighing his options. He had to tread carefully here, lining up his pieces for victory yet doing it in such a way to prevent from realizing the pattern he was setting until it was too late for him to do anything about it.

"But the three of you were friends, yes?"

"Yeah, it just worked out that way, I guess. Remember, Robin is the normal one of the bunch, as far as that goes. Cissie might qualify, but she had a stage mom for a parent, which makes that hard," Bart said, thinking about it. Some things didn't change. "But it's hard to think of her in that light, since she got out so cleanly. I hadn't talked to her in ages before she showed up here, my timeline."

He still felt a little bad about that. He'd left her alone because that was what she'd wanted, but that had left their friendship behind, too. It distracted him a bit from the game. "I always envied her strength, too."

"Cissie seems a very nice girl," Anatoly remarked absently as he debated his next line of attack. "And Cassie is very happy to have her, she tells me. She seems happy to have all of you here."

Cassie and Kon were dear to him as his own children, which meant in his brand of logic that Cissie and Bart would have to be looked after as well.

"We're family, or close enough. Nothing can just change that," he said, loyally.

He considered his next move, realizing belatedly that he was staring at a configuration looking rather like an intersection of one way and do not enter. Tapping his fingers lightly on the edge of the table, he wondered where he'd made a mistake.

"Family is very important," Anatoly agreed a bit wistfully. "Especially here where your own may not be here. I am glad for you all that you've found each other here. It surely makes it all easier."

Glancing at the board, he was fairly confident that he had Bart on the run, but he was far too seasoned a player to show it in his bearing. It wasn't over yet.

"I'd rather have the family I chose. My grandfather doesn't even want to me to call him that. He says it makes him feel old. And my twin, well, the less said about him, the better," he said.

Bart thought he might have one last trick up his sleeve, but it would have to wait until the right moment. Sometimes the overlooked pieces could regain power.

Anatoly was quiet for a few moments. He didn't know the situation between Bart's grandfather or his twin, but he couldn't help but wonder if what Bart felt was perhaps what his own own children felt about him. It was likely that while he was here, he would never know.

At least he was on surer ground with the chess. "Check."

"Hrmph," Bart said, taking the offending piece. It had been a fork, so he took the branch that seemed more advantageous in the end. He was going to make a good show of it, at least.

While Bart was making a truly valiant effort, he was heading down the direction that Anatoly had slowly and painstakingly set before him. The trap was all but set and it would all be over in a few moves.

His army decimated, and not in the original sense of the word, Bart finally relented with the available moves had narrowed to the point of no return. With a single flick of his fingers, he knocked down his king, then held out his hand to Anatoly.

"Clearly, this isn't my game. You should see me at Tetris. It's even a Russian game, at least originally."

Anatoly shook Bart's hand firmly. "It was a well-fought game. You should not feel any shame in that. You managed to defeat Freddie, which is no small thing at all."

"Tetris? What is this?"

"A video game. You have to line up falling pieces to make rows before the stacks reach the top. It's addictive, but pretty simple to learn. The real trick is learning to play well," he tried to explain.

There weren't many games that could pull Anatoly away from his beloved chess, but Tetris sounded intriguing and had the benefit of being Russian to its advantage. "You will have to show me sometimes," he said. "It sounds interesting."

"I'll have to see if anyone has it," Bart said, smiling slightly. He wouldn't even try too hard to beat him. Not at first.

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The game - our one true guiding light

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