Alternative 3 by Ken Mitchell

Author:Ken Mitchell [Mitchell, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 0732278562

10

By the time 6.30 had rolled around, Gina had showered, Curtis had slept, and they had all eaten dinner at the A-Lee-Inn. Conversation was tense during dinner, although Maggie had warmed to them, now they were sitting with Jim. And the food was all the better for it. Curtis was glad Sam hadn’t brought her camera with her, because he hadn’t been looking forward to telling her she couldn’t. They ate quickly, and Sam put the dinner on her work Visa. Nice gesture. Curtis figured she probably saw it as an advance payment. Back at Jim’s trailer, Curtis spent 30 minutes preparing for the crack. He’d rigged up three of Jim’s screens so they could keep track of everything. One for Jim to make his moves on, the second for the de-encryption programme. The third, an old 14-inch monitor Curtis had found stacked away underneath a pile of computer equipment, was to keep track of the number of users that were logged on. He needed to know how much computing power he had while the crack was underway. If it dropped too much, the de-encryption would slow down. Too much more and it would choke the supercomputer. And if things got really heavy, there was a chance he could crash all the connected computers. A worst-case scenario. But possible. By seven o’clock — the time for the game to start, Curtis was ready. Jim logged on to the site, and the pre-game chitchat over the bulletin board was underway. Jim’s friend — the one who ran the site — was introducing his mystery friend, possibly the world’s worst-kept secret. Curtis watched as the graph showing the number of users connecting and running the special programme to form the supercomputer began gradually sliding upwards. Party time. Jim looked psyched.

‘You OK?’ asked Curtis.

Jim nodded grimly. ‘Just make sure you crack it. Leave the chess to me.’

He looked wired at the thought of playing his childhood idol. Pity he’d never be able to tell anyone about it.

‘You sound pretty confident. I thought he was the best?’ said Curtis.

Jim eyeballed him. ‘He is. But I’ve got an advantage. And I’m going to use it to psyche him out.’

‘What kind of advantage?’ Curtis didn’t follow.

‘He thinks I’m a computer. So he thinks I’m calculating every possible combination of moves and choosing my moves based on the calculations. And that’s how he’ll respond. He’ll assume that because I’m a computer, I know what I’m doing.’ Jim looked at Curtis and smiled. So that was his advantage. A real confidence booster. Curtis went back to the screen, following the conversation online. They were almost ready. Sam was filming now. Gina was stationed on the user graph down on the floor.

‘How many we got online?’ asked Curtis.

‘About 1200. Still climbing.’ It would have to do.

Fischer was white. He opened with a pawn. But the instant his pawn settled on a new square, Jim responded with a similar opening. There was a pause, and then Fischer moved again. This time Jim’s response was even quicker.

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