Dead Position by Jenna Calloway
Dead Position by Jenna Calloway
The Colonel’s clockwork tarantula unfurled in response to the typed command, then scuttled over the edge of the pit and triggered the game’s pneumatic mechanism. The macabre chess board of cramped cages reconfigured in response. Valeria winced as the screams from her trapped crew joined the grating of gears, and her eviscerated Bishop dropped onto the other corpses below.
She swallowed and looked to the King’s position at F2. Her estranged son’s pleading eyes locked firmly on hers.
Another wrong choice and Brin would die.
“Yer move, luv.”
Valeria gritted her teeth, suppressing rage for both the psychopath who orchestrated this perverse game, and Brin’s sheep-minded naivety which led to it.
The same rage that caused their distance.
Painful imagery cascaded through her mind – Brin’s regurgitation of the incendiary rhetoric that threatened her leadership of the pirated dirigible, the public dressing down she delivered, her fist smashing his face.
She blinked away tears.
A hiss of steam and whirring blades brought her out of the reverie. She focused on the board’s arrangement.
Kings cut off. Nothing left but…
Pawns!
She tapped instructions – white pawn to G3 – into the waiting spider.
“Interesting choice,” the Colonel rasped as it unfurled, “no legal moves left. That puts the game into…
Valeria gripped his throat. “Dead position. It’s a draw.”
He roughly pulled her hand away. “Wrong. There needs to be mutual surrender and…,” a smirk played on his thin lips as he leaned forward, “it’s my move.”
* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Jenna Calloway 2023
