The Last Draw

Greeting,

This story was written in response to a short story prompt "Piece by Piece". Though, the contents were inspired by a YouTube video counting down evidence of "Parallel Universes". The various countdown videos are always great sources of inspiration when I'm trying to come up with an idea of what to write about.

The name of the story is called "The Last Draw". Let me know what you think! I look forward to hearing back from you!

Thanks!

James Meadows

"The Last Draw"

by James J Meadows III

     The first thing I noticed, as I entered the room, was the large chess board stationed under the far window. I smiled. Somehow I should have known it would be this way.

     “Commander Lukin. I thought you had retired. Please, take a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

     I turned toward the speaker, a man whom I had fought more battles with than I could even count; a man whose dark schemes marked him as perhaps the greatest villain to ever live upon our world; a man whose wicked deeds had brought me here today to confront him one last time.

     “Just a small one,” I replied, taking a seat in one of the plush arm chairs behind the chess board. I glanced outside the window at the thick dark forest surrounding his hideout. It was amazing that anyone, even I, could find their way through this thicket to reach the fortress.

     As I sat, I could feel the photon bomb in my pocket press against my skin. It was a device capable of creating an atomic explosion, one big enough to wipe out everything for miles around. I had requested it as a last resort in case I failed. Yet, a part of me had considered a different plan, a plan my adversary could not possibly foresee.

     He walked across the room to pour the drinks. I marveled at him. He was always so calm, so imperturbable, and ever cordial in defeat as well as victory. That was why I respect him.

     “So they called you out of retirement to battle me one last time?” he asked, filling the drinks and crossing back toward us.

     “Surprised?”

     “Not really,” he responded, handing me the drink. “Still, what are your people going to do once you are no longer there to save them?”

     “I don’t know,” I responded. “Perhaps travel to another parallel universe where I have trained a protégé and bring them back. You know all about traveling to the various worlds and dimensions. That is where you got this game from, after all.”

     He sat down in the chair and smiled. Picking up the pawn in front of his king, he pushed it forward two squares. He stared at me expectantly. I knew, from our past confrontations, that I wasn’t going to get anything else out of him until I made a move, so I leaned forward and pushed my opposite pawn up in response. He moved a knight out to attack my pawn.

     I had anticipated this move and prepared a special response for it. I picked the pawn on the left side of my king, pushing it forward one square to protect my pawn from his attack. The move obviously caught him off-guard because he sat up, studying the position intently.

     “I never understand your fascination with this game, an ancient relic from a race long extinct in a world well past its prime,” I said.

     “There is a story in the world this game came from,” he responded, not taking his eyes off the board. “It concerns a Sultan, a type of king, whose brother usurped his throne. As his brother’s army swarmed the palace, a guard entered the throne room, where the Sultan was playing a game of chess. The guard told the Sultan they must flee. The Sultan, knowing he had nowhere to go and no one to run to, even if he was able to escape, told the guard to go away because he was making a move. In the end, enemy soldiers burst in and killed the Sultan over his chessboard. He chose to die playing chess rather than wasting away in exile. Only a game with that kind of power is worthy of my interest.”

     I thought about this for a moment. As I watched, he startled me by capturing the pawn with his knight. I picked up my pawn and captured his knight in response.

     “I know you stole the Dimensional Inverter,” I said. “What are you doing with it?”

     “Waiting for me to give the traditional villainous dialogue about my grand evil scheme?” he asked, looking at me with a sideways grin.

     “Hey, I might as well know what plot I’m supposed to be thwarting before I try it,” I said.

     He smiled. “Well, the Inverter is a useful thing, no doubt: able to summon objects from other dimensions and parallel universes. Your kingdom and its corrupt government spent decades designing and building it. I’m sure it crushed them when they found it and all their notes stolen.”

     I shook my head. He had always hated my kingdom and its leaders.

     “Of course, they didn’t know I had spied on their progress for years, learning about it,” he said. “Figuring out how I could give it a little tweak. Check!”

     He moved his queen across the board to attack my king. I moved a pawn forward to block his attack and leaned back into my chair.

     “Tweaked it to do what?” I asked.

     At these words, he let out a laugh.

     “Seriously,” he said. “Have you not even looked out the window once since we sat down?”

     At that moment, for the first time, I realized sunlight was streaming onto the chess board. I looked out the window and beheld, to my shock, a bright green field full of flowers, bushes, and wide expanses of animals grazing beneath the noonday sky.

     “Those flowers, those animals, they are from the world of Lyndios,” I gasped. “How?”

     I looked at him. He just smiled and said, “Check”.

     Looking down at the board, I realized he had captured a pawn with his queen and was now attacking my king. I wasn’t that worried about it. I had captured one of his knights already. I just moved my king to the only free space and waited for him to continue.

     As I finished my move, the light on the board disappeared. The landscape outside had changed again. A large cratered surface filled with pools of bubbling silver ooze, which emitted a foul toxic odor, replaced the previously beautiful exterior.

     “Check,” he said again.

     I heard him place his piece down upon the board. When he did, the scene outside changed again, replaced by a deep dark sea of black liquid with bizarre purple fumes rising from it.

     “The chess board,” I exclaimed. “You’ve connected the Dimensional Inverter to the chess board!”

     “Did you know?” he asked. “That there are over ten billion possible combinations of chess lines after only the first ten moves? There are so many possible combinations of chess moves and sequences that they outnumber all the atoms in the entire universe! I have manipulated the Inverter so that it has connected each of those possible combinations with a different world. Even I don’t know what will arise from each position!”

     “But why?” I asked.

     He sat back and gazed at me.

     “It’s your move.” He said.

     I looked down to see my king under attack from a bishop. I moved a pawn forward two spaces, blocking the attack.

     “It is the ultimate weapon,” he continued. “With the right changes, the device now has the ability to tear out a piece of this universe or world and switch it with a piece from another world. You can send an enemy army blocking your way to another world and replace it with an empty plain or make opposing towns, factories and fortifications vanish with a blink. You can render entire arsenals irrelevant by just shooting them into another universe. Check.”

     He captured the pawn with the bishop.

     “Think about it,” he said. “Any country would pay infinite wealth for such a weapon. I have already created a dozen of them. Soon there will be hundreds. Everyone will want one, especially when the war break outs.”

     “What war?”

     “Oh, come on,” he replied. “How many countries are already on the verge of war? With this kind of technology, I only need to give a small push – a town disappearing, replaced by a crater, a weapons factory replaced by a burned down ruin. Once an opponent is accused, war in inevitable.”

     “That’s why you’re doing this?” I said with some incredulity, “to start a war? You’re talking about all of time and space fracturing. Objects will be displaced throughout not just our universe but all universes. The entire multiverse will fall apart!”

     “Exactly,” he said. “I’m not just after a war. I’m after a war that will transform all war forever – a war to end all things! Check!”

     He captured my bishop with his own bishop. In response, I heard the loud roars of wild creatures outside. Without even looking to see what new world he had summoned, I moved my king to a new square. The sound died out.

     “What is in this for you?” I asked.

     “Do you know what happened to the race that created this game?”

     “No,” I answered.

     “They had a powerful regent leading a country equipped with hundreds of nuclear weapons,” he said. “Unbeknownst to the other kingdoms, he had a program, called ‘Dead Hand’ which, upon his death, would launch all of his nuclear weapons at once. On his death bed, he triggered it, just so he could take the whole world out with him.”

     He looked up at me, his face serious.

     “I’m dying,” he said. “Years of traveling from universe to universe, world-to-world have damaged my body and brain. I am already starting to wither away. I don’t want to die quietly; I want to go out with a bang. But you already know that, don’t you? Because you’re dying too, from years of chasing me, aren’t you? That is why you have the photon bomb in your pocket, isn’t it?”

     Despite the seriousness of the moment, I couldn’t help but smile. Somehow, he always seemed to know. Even when he couldn’t stop me, he still seemed to be one step ahead. And now, the plan I thought he couldn’t possibly foresee turned out to be the one he expected all along.

     I reached into my pocket and pulled out the device.

     “Check” he said, moving his bishop to capture a knight.

     I placed the bomb on the table beside the chess board. He watched me, studying me with his intense gaze. The eyes made me uncomfortable. So I turned to look out the window. I wasn’t worried about him taking the bomb or stopping me from using it. I suspected he wanted to see if I would do it, maybe even give me the chance.

     “It’s your move,” he said.

     I watched the bizarre tentacles flapping from a strange bog outside the window for several moments before looking at the board. Then, I moved my king of out the line of the attack before looking back out the window. My gaze now fell upon a full moon shimmering over a peaceful meadow.

     “It almost seems poetic doesn’t it,” he said. “For the last century, we have battled together. Now, in the end, we die together, one final resolution to a long game. We can call it a draw.”

     Again, I didn’t say anything. There was nothing more to say. A part of me suspected this was his plan all along. I would destroy him, both of us going out in a blaze of glory. Meanwhile he would get the satisfaction of taking out the Inverter and all its records with him, one last spiteful strike against my kingdom. Even better, I, the hero of my kingdom, would be the one to destroy them, and myself.

     The rest of the schemes were just a threat to force my hand. Yet I knew only too well, he would not hesitate to carry out his threat if I didn’t carry out mine.

     “I have mate-in-one,” he said. “It’s your move.”

     He pushed the explosive toward me.

     “Make it.” He said.

     I studied him for a moment. Then I picked up the bomb, my fingers coming to rest upon the trigger.

     “Good game,” I told him, giving him a nod.

     “Good game,” he said. And I squeezed.