This is a story I started for a writing competition a short while back.. but I never finished it. And I probably never will. I just cant think of where to go from here.

Anyway, I still like it and I thought I'd post it. Here it is :)



The hourglass slowly drained, silently adding its weight to the impending finality of his decision. He was close to victory.. close to the fruition of hours of effort. But he couldn't afford to be confident. It wouldn't be the first time he'd lost it all to an ill conceved move on his part. 5 seconds left on the clock.. 3 seconds..

Ah, to hell with it.

He quickly dragged the stake icon to its resting place with less than a second to spare. A bridge materialized on the screen, finalizing his move, even if the timer hadn't. The piece was now locked in. End Turn

And now, we wait.

He sat in silence, looking intently from the screen to the timer, and back to the screen. 5 minutes on the clock.. and he was certain every one of them would be used before his turn came again. That approach was fine with him though. It gave him time to think, to study the board.

Time to relax. With a sigh the man rubbed his eyes, feeling a weariness that can only come from intense concentration combined with highstakes competition on a time limit. 3 minutes..

He pulled a soda from the minifridge by his desk. The hiss it gave as he broke the seal was almost as refreshing as the drink itself. He quickly downed it and placed the cool can against his clammy forhead. Much better. Now to study the board.

There were few openings left for him, and the tangled mess of stakes and bridges made it difficult to locate exactly where they were. The board was four times the length of a typical twixt board, and eight times as wide - something they'd added to make the game more challenging (as well as lengthy). It made it extraordinarily hard to take in the whole picture at once.. something pretty much necessary for mathmatically based games. The best you could hope for was to get a 'sense' of the board.. or zoom in and study each segmant individually (a daunting task with only 5 minutes per turn). It was against the rules to make changes to the game program itself, but he had a printout on his wall that he'd put together to get around that. It was the printout he studied now, red pegs marking where his moves had been placed, black showing his opponent's, and green representing the as yet unused spaces. With a sigh he replaced a green peg with a red, signifying the last move he'd made.

Only 12 possible moves left.. Turning back to his screen, he zoomed in on the sector with the most openings and studied the bridges, trying to find openings in the tangled stake maze they'd both created. He needed to find atleast two, so he could be certain that his opponent coudn't block him off. There, and...

There. He let out a breath and gave a slight chuckle. He had it now. The timer buzzed, telling him it was once again his turn, but this time he was ready. He casually placed his stake, bringing it out just close enough to ensure his victory the next round. The bridge formed, the electronic hourglass reset for his opponent's turn and he..

..lost. The screen started fading to black with the words 'Game Over' jiggling across the screen like a bunch of crazed chipmunks on crack, complete with sound effects. With a hiss of frustration, he closed the program and got up to make some coffee.

By the time he was scooping the grounds into the filter, the message was already coming across his computer speakers.

"Hey man, good game. I thoroughly enjoyed thrashing you. Want to go double or nothing?"

He pushed the speak button on his headset long enough to reply with a somewhat bitter bitter, "Go to hell Jim."

Jim's laughter could be heard over the speakers as well. "Hey, lighten up. It's only a game after all. By the way, you now owe me-"

"Quite a bit more than I'd like to think about at the moment." he said, cutting off Jim's sentance. He sighed again, suddenly feeling very, very tired. "I can't believe I let you get me with something so basic as redirection. I focus on the goal, you slip your last bridge across the line on the other end of the board."

"Hey, we all have our rough spells. You think I still begrudge you the two R255s you snagged from me in 'Go' last week?"

"Damned straight you do. At least, you did ultil you won them back just now." Another sigh. "You sure you want Cindy?"

"Yup. The entire package. I can pick up her AND my R255s in the morning. Unless,.." He could almost hear the twinkle in Jim's eye. That shark.

"Alright Jim.. Double or nothing it is. Per usual, the loser chooses the game. I write the code, you get a week to study it and give your okay, and if I win I come out with Cindy, the R255s, AND I can pick through your stuff to find something to equal their collective value."

"That's the way it works."

"You know.. this might not be so bad after all. My mind's already working on an Othello variant you're certain to love. Oh, and you wouldn't happen to still have that lovely little quad-screen setup would you? I want it."

"You're a bastard, Thomas. This should be good."

****
Jim almost regretted going double or nothing already. There was always the chance of losing it all. He pushed the thought aside. He might lose the next game.. Othello was never his cup of tea. Then again, if he came out on top with this game, Thomas would face a serious confidence blow that could help him in others. Either way, if he lost it only ment the wager doubled again and HE could pick the game. The trick wasn't necesarily to win them all. He just had to drag it on until satisfied with his winnings and then close out on Thomas.

And ofcourse, hope that Thomas didn't do the same thing to him before he got the chance. That was the real gamble in these double or nothing games. The idea that Thomas might cash out while he's ahead and take all the winings with him. Neither of them wanted end it too soon, but both would be wary of continuing it past the other's patience. That was the biggest risk, and thrill.

Jim pulled open the webclient they'd had open so the others could watch the game. After chuckling a bit at some of the after-competition comment people were making, he announced closing time and shut it down. Some of them ahd been quite upset with the games results.. not surprisingly consitering Thomas had been the favorite for this match.. and his gamble with Jim had hardly been the only one going.

He tried to remember what had started the continued rivalry. They'd shared a computer science major in college. Both of them top of thier class, they started pitting their skills against eachother whenever possible. It had been little coding competitions at first, or the ccasional board game. When they'd graduated, the two kept in contact a bit through e-mail but, generally, they'd pretty much drifted apart. Years had passed until Jim had recieved a mesage from Thomas about this new competition. Always up for the challenge, he'd accepted.. and lost. But he discovered something that had been lacking in college- the thrill of a wager. And then he'd doubled the stakes, picking a variant of his favorite game twixt to bring him victory. The two had both won a game. They were even now, but in reality, neither of them would be even again. There could only be one winner ultimately, and no consolation prize for second. As enjoyable as the game was, Jim couldn't help but wonder what his friend had unwittingly unleashed. Or if they could even remain friends when it was over.

I really enjoyed this story! You managed to make the emotions of Jim and Thomas seem very vivid, and you did a great job of portraying the danger of having games become more than games!