The Jupiter Plague

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Dr. Sam Bertolli hunched forward over the tiny computer chessboard, frowning in such concentration that his thick, black eyebrows met and formed a single ridge over his eyes. He reached out slowly and advanced his king’s pawn one square.

“That is correct,” the computer said in a tiny voice, and he relaxed. He had made the same move that Fischer had played in 1987 in Berlin. Then the computer buzzed and a dotted line of lights stretched across the board from the opposing bishop. Sam slid the piece along the diagonal to the illuminated square and the lights went out. The computer was playing Fischer’s opponent in that historical game, Smyslov, and the move was an unexpected and subtle one. Sam frowned again and bent over the board.

On the other side of the stainless-steel table

Killer turned the page of a magazine: it rustled loudly in the intense silence of the Emergency Room. Outside of the hospital the city rumbled and hummed to itself, surrounding them yet keeping its distance — but always ready to break in. There were twelve million people in Greater New York and at any moment the door could open and one or more of them would be carried in, white with shock or blue with cyanosis. Here on this table — on which they leaned so casually — blood-soaked clothing had been cut away, while the now silent room had echoed with the screams of the living, the moans of the dying.

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