Курт Воннегут - Player Piano (Utopia 14)

"Play," said Finnerty.

Paul settled into his chair again. Dispiritedly, he pushed a checkerpiece forward. One of the youngsters closed a switch, and a light blinked on, indicating Paul's move on Checker Charley's bosom, and another light went on, indicating the perfect countermove for Berringer.

Berringer smiled and did what the machine told him to do. He lit a cigarette and patted the pile of currency beside him.

Paul moved again. A switch was closed, and the lights twinkled appropriately. And so it went for several moves.

To Paul's surprise, he took one of Berringer's pieces without, as far as he could see, laying himself open to any sort of disaster. And then he took another piece, and another. He shook his head in puzzlement and respect. The machine apparently took a long-range view of the game, with a grand strategy not yet evident. Checker Charley, as though confirming his thoughts, made an ominous hissing noise, which grew in volume as the game progressed.

"As of now, I am offering odds of three to one against Checker Charley," said Finnerty. Berringer and Shepherd both took him up on it for another twenty apiece.

Paul exchanged one man for three.

"Say - now wait just a minute," said Berringer.

"Wait for what?" said Finnerty.

"Something's wrong."

"You and Checker Charley are being beaten is all. Somebody always wins, and somebody always loses," said Finnerty. "That's the way it goes."

"Sure, but if Checker Charley was working right he couldn't lose." Berringer arose unsteadily. "Listen, we'd better call this thing off while we find out what's wrong." He tapped the front panel experimentally. "Jesus Christ, he's hot as a frying pan!"

"Finish the game, Junior. I want to know who's champ," said Finnerty.

"Don'tcha see!" said Berringer furiously. "It isn't working right." He looked pleadingly around the room.

"Your move," said Paul.

Berringer looked helplessly at the lights, slid a man forward.

Paul took two more of Berringer's pieces and made his own piece a king. "This must be the trickiest booby trap in history," he laughed. He was enjoying himself immensely.

"Any minute now, Checker Charley's going to see his opening, and then it's going to be bye-bye championship," said Finnerty. "Hop, hop, hop, hoppity hop. Curtains, Paul."

"Calculus is a wonderful thing," said Paul. He sniffed. The air was getting heavy with a smell like burning paint, and his eyes were beginning to smart.

One of Berringer's seconds jerked open the back of the box, and smoke, colored a poisonous green by the glare from within, poured into the room.

"Fire!" cried Baer.

A waiter came running with a fire extinguisher and sent a jet of fluid into Checker Charley's entrails. Steam billowed up as the jet fizzed and sputtered on the glowing parts.

The lights on Charley's steel bosom were skittering about the board wildly now, playing a demoniacal and swift game according to rules only the machine could understand. All the lights went on at once, a hum swelled louder and louder, until it sounded like a thunderous organ note, and suddenly died. One by one, the little lamps winked out, like a village going to sleep.

"Oh my, my, oh my," murmured Baer.

"Fred, I'm so sorry," said Anita. She looked reproachfully at Paul.

The engineers crowded around Checker Charley, and those in the front rank probed through the ashes, melted tubes, and blackened wires. Tragedy was in every face. Something beautiful had died.

"Such a lovely thing," said Kroner sadly, resting his hand on Berringer's shoulder. "If you like, perhaps things would go easier if I told your father what happened."

"It was practically his life - away from the laboratory," said Berringer. He was shocked and scared. "Years and years. Why did it have to happen?" It was one more hollow echo to the question humanity had been asking for millenniums, the question men were seemingly born to ask.

"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," said Finnerty.

Berringer bit his lip and nodded, until it began to dawn on him just who it was that had spoken. His round, stupid face slowly took on a mean, threatening cast. "Uh-huh," he said, licking his lips, "the wise guy. Almost forgot about you."

"Well, you'd better not. I've got a lot of money bet on who's going to win."

"Now, see here, Finnerty," said Kroner placatingly, "let's call it a draw, shall we? I mean, after all, the boy's got a right to be upset, and -"

"Draw, hell," said Finnerty. "Paul beat Checker Charley fair and square."

"I'm beginning to see, I think," said Berringer menacingly. He gathered Finnerty's lapels in his hands. "What'd you do to Checker Charley, wise guy?"

"Ask Baer. His head was in there with mine. Baer, did I do anything to Charley?"

"What, eh? Do anything, do anything? Damage, you mean? No, no, no," said Baer.

"So sit down and finish the game, fat boy," said Finnerty. "Or concede. Either way, I want my money."

"If you didn't do anything to Charley, how come you were so sure he'd lose?"

"Because my sympathy's with any man up against a machine, especially a machine backing up a knucklehead like you against a man like Paul. Besides, Charley had a loose connection."

"Then you should have said so!" said Berringer. He gestured at the ruins of the machine. "Look - just look, will you? Look what you did by not telling me about the connection. I ought to mop this place up with your dirty face."

"Now, now, now - there, there," said Kroner, stepping between the two. "You should have said something about that connection, Ed. This is a shame, a real shame."

"If Checker Charley was out to make chumps out of men, he could damn well fix his own connections. Paul looks after his own circuits; let Charley do the same. Those who live by electronics, die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis ." He gathered up the bills from the table. "Good night."

Anita dug her fingernails into Paul's arm. "Oh Paul, Paul, he's ruined the whole evening."

On his way out, Finnerty paused by Paul and Anita. "Nice going, champ."

"Please give them their money back," said Anita. "The machine wasn't working right. Be fair. Isn't that right, Paul?"

To the amazement of the whole somber group, Paul lost control and burst out laughing.

"That's the spirit, champ," said Finnerty. "I'm going home now, before these gentlemen sportsmen find a rope."

"Home? Washington?" said Anita.

"Your house, dear. I haven't got a place in Washington any more."

Anita closed her eyes. "Oh, I see."

"WHAT was his expression like when he said it?" said Anita.

Paul had the comforter pulled up over his face and was trying to get to sleep tightly curled in the dark, muffled womb he made of his bed each night. "He looked sad," he murmured. "But he always looks sad - real sweet and sad."

For three hours they had been going over the events of the evening at the club, coming back again and again to what Kroner had said by way of farewell.

"And he didn't take you aside for a couple of words at any time?" She was wide awake.

"Scout's honor, Anita, all he said was what he said at the last."

She repeated Kroner's words judiciously, " 'I want you to come see me and Mom sometime next week, Paul.' "

"That's all."

"Nothing about Pittsburgh?"

"No," he said patiently. "I tell you, no." He tucked the comforter more snugly around his head and pulled his knees up higher. "No."

"Haven't I got a right to be interested?" she said. He'd evidently hurt her. "Is that what you're telling me, that I haven't the right to care?"

"Gladja care," he said thickly. "Fine, wonderful, thanks." In the quasi nightmare of being only half asleep, he visualized the notion of man and wife as one flesh - a physical monstrosity, pathetic, curious, and helpless Siamese twins.