I wrap a hand around my fist and squeeze as hard as I can. Imagining my fist is his neck. Four minutes to choke the life out of him. Just four minutes.
“Teacup’s alive,” I tell him. “You know the threat to fry my brain won’t make me do what you want me to do. But you know I’ll do it for her.”
“You belong to each other now, yes? Connected as if by a silver cord?” Smiling. “Anyway, besides the serious injuries from which she may not recover, you’ve given her the priceless gift of time. There is a saying in Latin. Vincit qui patitur. Do you know what it means?”
I’m beyond cold. I’ve reached absolute zero. “You know I don’t.”
“‘He conquers who endures.’ Remember poor Teacup’s rats. What can they teach us? I told you when you first came to me; it isn’t so much about crushing your capacity to fight as it is your will to fight.”
The rats again. “A hopeless rat is a dead rat.”
“Rats do not know hope. Or faith. Or love. You were right about those things, Private Ringer. They will not deliver humanity through the storm. You were wrong, however, about rage. Rage isn’t the answer, either.”
“What’s the answer?” I don’t want to ask, don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I can’t help it.
“You’re close to it,” he says. “I think you might be surprised how close you are.”
“Close to what?” My voice sounds as small as a rat’s.
He shakes his head, impatient again. “Play.”
“It’s pointless.”
“A world in which chess does not matter is not a world in which I wish to live.”
“Stop doing that. Stop mocking my father.”
“Your father was a good man in thrall to a terrible disease. You shouldn’t judge him harshly. Nor yourself for abandoning him.”
Please don’t go. Don’t leave me, Marika.
Long, nimble fingers clawing at my shirt, the fingers of an artist. Face sculpted by the merciless knife of hunger, the infuriated artist with the helpless clay, and red eyes rimmed in black.
I’ll come back. I promise. You’re going to die without it. I promise. I’ll come back.
Vosch is smiling soullessly, a shark’s smile or a skull’s sneer, and if rage is not the answer, what is? I’m squeezing my fist hard enough to force my nails into my palm. Here’s how Evan described it, Sullivan said, wrapping her fist in her hand. This is Evan. This is the being inside. My hand is the rage, but what is my fist? What is the thing wrapped up in rage?
“One move from mate,” Vosch says softly. “Why won’t you make it?”
My lips barely move. “I don’t like to lose.”
He pulls a silver device the size of a cell phone from his breast pocket. I’ve seen one before. I know what it does. The skin around the tiny patch of adhesive sealing the insertion point on my neck begins to itch.
“We’re a little beyond that stage,” he says.
Blood inside the fist that’s within the hand clenching the fist. “Push the button. I don’t give a shit.”
He nods approvingly. “Now you’re very close to the answer. But it is not your implant linked to this transmitter. Do you still want me to push it?”
Teacup. I look down at the board. One move from mate. The match was over before it began. When the game is fixed, how do you avoid losing?