The Hunting of the Stark: The Chess Match
This is another bit of "The Hunting of the Stark", my massive unpublished Eureka fic...though at this rate it may all end up here! Ultraman fans will recognize one particular name...Ultraseven fans another...
Doctors Mitsuhiro Ide and Shigeru Furuhashi took their respective places at the chess table. The other residents of the retirement home took care to scoot away as best they could, having long since resigned themselves to this daily battle.
No one could remember if either man had ever beaten the other in a match. Most times the sessions ended with a great deal of yelling and arm-waving, invariably ending with one sweeping the pieces off the table and storming off while the other accused him of cowardice.
As noted, this had been going on for a very long time.
Ide considered his opponent. “Who’s white today?”
Furuhashi rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. You go ahead. It won’t help you in the end, after all.” Ide snorted and set the pieces out, and moments later the match was in full swing.
“You’re putting your bishop in peril,” Furuhashi pointed out helpfully.
“As if you know the slightest thing about chess,” Ide retorted, but he slipped the piece back into a safer position. The first ten minutes were usually relatively quiet, punctuated on occasion by a snarky comment that was immediately countered. The accusations of cheating were due to start in about ten minutes.
Today, however, was going to be different. “Gentlemen,” Nathan Stark said as he flickered into existence. “How’s the match going today?”
“He’s trying to figure out how best to cheat,” Furuhashi muttered. He glanced up at the newcomer. “Aren’t you dead?”
Stark considered this. “I got better.”
“Pay attention to the board, not to him,” Ide snapped. “He’s just an afterimage of the moment he died. I’ve seen this happen before, you know.”
“Oh, the hell you have. Since when?”
Ide shrugged. “I think it was 1972. The Kobe kaiju attack. One of the defense team got hit in a chronal beam and kept popping up in the damnest places for three weeks. It finally stopped, which was good. All that screaming got on my nerves.”
“That is the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever heard,” Furuhashi shot back. “The Kobe kaiju attack was 1974, and there were no casualties. Besides, he replied to something I said. An afterimage can’t evaluate a statement and offer a response, by definition.”
“It was 1972, because I was there working for Fujitech. I had to write the evaluation. And for your information, the chronal afterimages maintain a sort of minimal consciousness, at least early on. Eventually they just become echoes. And it’s not like he said anything intelligent. He quoted Monty Python, for God’s sake.”
“There is no God. We’ve been over that. There is only the sum intelligence of the universal consciousness, of which this is a small part. It’s not a chronal afterimage at all. It’s more the manifestation of collective memory given momentary existence.”
“You know, I am standing here,” Stark commented to no one in particular.
“Pffft! You and your humanism. Your children should have dumped you into a Shinto shrine instead of here. You’d be of more use as a decoration or charm seller. Check.”
“What?” Furuhashi studied the board, incredulous. “How did you do that? You must have cheated!”
 “I did no such thing!” Ide shouted.
“How else could the likes of you put me into check?”
“He caught your knight while you were pontificating,” Stark pointed out.
The two men turned toward him as one. “SHUT UP.”
“Besides, I know I’m right,” Furuhashi said, moving to protect his king. “There is most certainly a collective manifestation of consciousness. It’s called the Artifact and it’s sitting up at Global Dynamics in Section Five.”
“What?” Nathan snapped. “How in the hell do you know…”
Furuhashi snorted. “As if you were ever the first to study it. You youngsters, never think of asking your elders for their wisdom. Typical Western attitude. Now back in Japan the young knew to respect those with age and wisdom.”
“Then why the hell did you come here?” Ide snickered. “Check.”
“It paid better.” Furuhashi studied the board with increasing worry. Ide was getting too close to victory for comfort.
“Wait,” Stark ordered. “Are you saying that the Artifact has something to do with this mess I’m in?”
“How would I know? I’m just an elderly scientist who got stuck up here because he couldn’t possibly keep up with the young know-it-alls at Global. Just ask them.” Furuhashi’s brow furrowed as he carefully moved his king out of check for the moment.
“Not that we’re bitter about it or anything,” Ide noted. “Check.”
Stark sighed. “Mate in five. And maybe then you could…” He instinctively winced as Furuhashi’s arm swept across the board like a tsunami, sending white and black pieces flying in its wake. “Oh, for crying out loud…”
“THIS WAS YOUR FAULT!” Furuhashi bellowed, shaking a finger at Stark. “YOU DISTRACTED ME WITH YOUR SHOWING UP AND TALKING CONSTANTLY! HE PUT YOU UP TO IT, DIDN’T HE?”
Ide considered the accusation. “Now I wish I’d thought of it. Would have been fairly simple to set up…”
“I’M DONE WITH YOU, YOU CHEATING BASTARD!” Furuhashi stormed away. Ide smiled as he watched the old man leave, then glanced over at the slowly fading Stark.
“I don’t suppose you could come back tomorrow, same time?”
