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The Game of Possibilities

By Ethan Ham

It was Emmett’s first tournament, so his dad had to pay for an American Gata Association membership in addition to the entry fee. At the registration table, Emmett was given a lanyard printed with his name, age (twelve years old), and supposed rank.

Emmett’s dad transferred enough money for Emmett to buy lunch, said a few words of encouragement, and left. The gata tournament was an all-day affair, and non-players weren’t allowed in the game room, so it made sense for his dad not to stick around. Still, Emmett found himself choking down a small sense of abandonment.

With nothing else to do, Emmett joined the flow of players moving towards the tournament hall. Stepping through a bank of doors, he entered an enormous room that held a seemingly endless grid of tables, each neatly outfitted with game boards and numbered stands.

Emmett searched the room for his assigned board. All the ones Emmett could see were for ersatz gata, but he knew that the last few boards at the far side of the room were for the top players and games of true gata.

The tables at Emmett’s end of the tournament room were assigned to the weakest divisions. Most of the players around him were kids, with a few grownups sprinkled in. One of those grownups was sitting at board #277—Emmett’s board for the first round. Emmett walked over, sat down, and nodded a quick, “Hello.” He and his opponent exchanged names and peered at each other’s lanyard to confirm they were playing the right person. The room’s volume rose as people found their seats and made small talk with each other, but Emmett and his opponent both sat silently, waiting for the start of the round.

As he waited, Emmett thought about the long module on the Visitantes that his social studies class had just finished. Emmett’s final project had been on—surprise, surprise—gata, his favorite game. In his defense, there weren’t that many Visitante topics to choose from. Since Descoberta, the day they showed up on Earth, the Visitantes had been very stingy about what they shared. They doled out their marvels like a nurse feeding morsels to a starving man—simple food, slowly and in tiny spoonfuls, so the nourishment wouldn’t just be barfed right back out.

Gata was one of those few tiny bites, so everyone gobbled it down. Every school has a club; every library, a collection of “how to” books; and every media site, an influencer showing how it was played.

Emmett usually played gata—well, ersatz gata—on his school-issued streamer, but on the table between Emmett and his opponent was a large tablet/game board. Emmett had used a similar board at a friend’s house a few times in the past. Playing on it felt more real; players took their turns on the same surface in front of each other. That was very cool, plus, Emmett supposed, it made cheating a lot harder than it was when playing on your own device with no one seeing your screen.

A tournament director spoke into a microphone, asking the room to quiet down. He welcomed the players and then ran through an endless list of thank yous to various volunteers and sponsors.

And then the round started.

Emmett truly didn’t know how good he was. He didn’t have a tournament track record, so the rank he registered under was just a guess. He mainly played his friends at school, most of whom he could usually beat. Emmett could totally destroy a relatively new player—but he only did that once. It had felt so uncomfortable and so sad that Emmett always tried to not totally wipe another player off the board. But this was a tournament, so Emmett wouldn’t be going easy on anyone.

As Emmett slid his fingers on the board to place or move a piece, he fought to tamp down his hand’s shivers. It was the weirdest thing; he couldn’t stop shaking. Focus usually came easily to Emmett, but right now it wasn’t being effortless. He could focus, but it was work, and felt like walking through a swimming pool in chest-high water.

The game couldn’t have been more than thirty or so moves in, when Emmett’s opponent resigned. Emmett was surprised. His opponent had made a blunder or two, but the game seemed far from certain. Emmett let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His body relaxed its tension and Emmett felt completely drained.

“You need to tell the tournament director you’re in the wrong division. You should be playing at a higher rank,” the man said. Emmett could tell that his opponent was trying to sound helpful and gracious, but he actually seemed a bit pissed.

It’s not my fault you made mistakes, Emmett thought. But Emmett dutifully conveyed the message to the two people at the directors’ table. One of them grunted and tapped on his tablet. Emmett peered over the director’s shoulder as he scrubbed through the game Emmett had just played.

“Yeah,” the director said, “maybe we should move you up a division or two.”

The director asked for Emmett’s badge and tossed it into the trash. For a moment Emmett worried that he was in trouble and was being kicked out of the tournament—there had been warnings about “sandbagging” and “featherbagging” when Emmett signed up to play. But no, after a few more taps on the director’s tablet, a little printer sprang to life and spat out a fresh badge for Emmett with a new, better rank printed on it.

“We won’t know who you’re playing until this round finishes, but you’ll now be in division K instead of M,” the director explained.

Emmett nodded, took the badge, and strode away from the table trying to look like he had somewhere to be. He ended up next to a large screen that displayed the tournament matchups and outcomes. For the second round, Emmett was matched against a girl who looked to be about his own age.

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In his school Visitante essay, Emmett had written that gata is sometimes called “the game of possibilities.” For ersatz, those possibilities come from how you move the virtual pieces. If Emmett wanted to show strong intention and keep the possibilities small, he would slide a piece into place fast and hard. A slow, more hesitant move would give Emmett more possibilities, and the one game piece would be placed in multiple spaces at once, some more likely and solid, some more ethereal and remote. Emmett loved it when a well placed piece would rewrite the board. To Emmett, the game felt organic—like two colonies of organisms growing, dying, and evolving.

The one thing you don’t want to do in ersatz was change your mind mid-move. It was tempting sometimes, when you saw the possibilities that spawned as you were making a move. But the game punished abrupt changes in direction or speed with extremely scattered and weak possibilities.

The game against the girl was going well. She’s a good player, Emmett thought, but she’s moving too quickly.

He didn’t mean that her hand movements were too fast, throwing off the wrong possibilities. She actually seemed quite good at the intention part of the game. Her problem was that she didn’t think before moving. She jumped on her turns so fast that often she would start moving a piece before Emmett’s move had fully resolved. Emmett had taken advantage of his opponent’s speed by playing a number of moves where the obvious response was actually a bad one—moves that would be avoided by a player who read the game even a tiny bit more deeply.

Emmett was in such a strong position that he couldn’t lose, if it weren’t for the game clock. Emmett liked to think through his moves, and perhaps he took even more time than usual in this game, subconsciously pushing back at his opponent’s rushed pace. His clock was running low, and Emmett was starting to feel its pressure. Pretty soon he’d have to start rushing his moves and playing his opponent’s game. It was still the mid-game and there were plenty of opportunities to make stupid, fatal mistakes.

That is why Emmett decided to take a chance. The strength of his position gave him room to make a pointless move. Pointless, but maybe not. It was hard to describe, but the board felt right for it. The uncertainty it contained was high; a supersaturated situation in which one hard tap might precipitate a sweeping change—one that could, Emmett hoped, greatly favor his already strong position.

Emmett started his move. The brashness of it renewed the shaking in his hand, but Emmett didn’t fight it. This was one move in which a shaking hand worked just fine. His finger slid across the tablet’s glossy surface, pulling a new piece onto the board towards a vacant space near the center, where the action was building. But before sliding it into place, Emmett shifted directions, twirling his finger in tiny circles on the glass before abruptly plopping the piece in an unsettled part of the board.

It was a sloppy, purposeless move, and the piece sprayed out possibilities as numerous as they were weak. Most of them, including the piece Emmett actually placed, dissolved into nothingness. But half a dozen of the possibilities reinforced existing possibilities with just enough oomph to nudge them into substantiating. A cascade of Emmett’s pieces snapped into solidity, raking away most of the opponent’s buttresses.

After that, Emmett’s opponent didn’t move so quickly. She played several more moves and then resigned. “Lucky,” she muttered as she ended the game.

Emmett wasn’t sure if she was talking about the move—which had, admittedly, counted on luck—or his win in general, which he felt was well-earned.

The game left Emmett with a jittery energy to burn off. He wandered the edges of the game hall, peering at the in-progress games on the periphery. At the far side of the room, a raised dais hosted the games of true gata. True gata boards were extremely expensive, and this tournament was lucky to have four full sets. Emmett moved as close to the games as he could. He had, of course, seen games of true gata on video, but this was the first time he had seen it in person. It was disorienting to watch, even for someone who had played as much ersatz as Emmett.

Maybe being so used to the simulated game made the real thing feel even more weird. Emmett knew that the true game’s exotic, alien material could occupy multiple places in space at once—some more likely and solid, some more improbable and ghostly. Emmett’s mom always said intentions matter, and that certainly was true in gata. Emmett knew that players who wanted to make solid moves had to focus and keep other possible moves out of their head. But the game was about possibilities, and anyone who tried to always make single, firm moves was missing the point. As Emmett watched, the players’ hands occasionally seemed to jump-shift in space or be superimposed upon themselves when moving across the board.

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Emmett handily won his third game. It was a straightforward one in which Emmett’s opponent played defensively and didn’t really challenge Emmett’s moves, as if he was more focused on avoiding mistakes than winning the game.

The tournament’s final round was after lunch. If Emmett could pull off one more win, he’d take first place in the division. It felt very possible; even probable. The stronger players at his school were more challenging than the players he was competing against in K division. All through the lunch break, Emmett felt giddy. He tried to tell himself that his next game would be against the toughest opponent he’d play in the tournament—someone who had also won all their games.

Still, when he swung by the trophy table, shortly before the start of the last round, Emmett couldn’t help but think about what he’d do with the prize. On the table were large trophies for the top few divisions. But better than that were the dozen or so cardboard presentation boxes, each one holding a true gata game piece. Division champions would go home with a small, alien artifact.

Emmett could imagine the faces of his friends—and even better, his haters—if he were to show off the game piece at school.

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When Emmett arrived at the table for his final game, he saw that his opponent was a Visitante wearing a baggy coat and wrapped in a scarf—a soccer supporter scarf, Emmett guessed.

Emmett had seen Visitantes before. If you rode buses and trams as much as Emmett did, eventually you’d share one with an alien. Visitantes do not own cars. But he’d never spoken to one.

“I’m Emmett,” he said as he slid into his chair.

The Visitante introduced itself in thin, brittle eggshell words, “My name is João. I am pleased to meet you.” Visitante voices sounded like they were speaking in a way their bodies were not intended to—kinda like when Emmett said the Pledge of Allegiance by burping.

It was an awful game. Nothing Emmett did worked. It was like playing red hands against someone who could slap him whenever they wanted. It started out like a real match, but then—before he was ready—his hands stung with a slap he didn’t see coming. Another slap as he tried to recover from the first. Then slapped again and again. Emmett was a raw pair of hands that the Visitante could smack at its leisure.

About two-thirds of the way through the game, Emmett felt tears coming into his eyes. He let them roll down his face. Acknowledging them with a wipe would be worse. When it became too embarrassing to continue, Emmett resigned.

A dialog popped up on the tablet stating that the outcome had been recorded.

The Visitante—João—said something.

“What?” Emmett asked. He could hear a quiver in his voice.

“I should not have played. Sorry. My parent did not want me to play in a more difficult division. It does not think Visitantes should lose at gata.” After a pause João added, “You played well.”

Emmett responded with a jerk of his head that might have meant, “Ok.” Or it might have meant, “Shut up!” Emmett wasn’t really sure, himself.

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Emmett called his dad for a pickup and then hung out for the award ceremony. When he returned to the table to get his backpack, the Visitante was there.

“Want to see it?” it crackled, holding out the true gata piece.

Despite himself, Emmett nodded and took the game piece from João’s handalogue. Aside from feeling a little heavier than one might expect, it was solid and normal. Emmett squeezed it, and then returned it to João, a bit reluctantly. The alien nodded and turned to leave.

When Emmett looked up from gathering his bag, he saw João several tables away, staring at him. João raised its handalogue above its head. For a moment Emmett thought it was waving goodbye, but then saw the Visitante was holding the gata piece between two adaptors. Then, in an instant, the gata piece disappeared and Emmett felt something in his fist—a fist he had not realized he was making. Opening his hand, he saw the gata piece.

For a moment, the whole day felt like a move that hadn’t yet resolved. When Emmett looked up again, João was gone.

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Host Commentary

By Alasdair Stuart

Ethan says:

The story draws inspiration from my sons’ early adventures learning to play Go and from the experiences we shared competing in our first tournaments. 

 Where this story lives for me is in the way it uses the mundane and the alien to magnify each other. The mundane is the wonderful, tedious, local, universal experience of a tournament or a competition or a sporting event. I can see the tables they’re playing on. Hear the way the room feels. This is a universal third space, the place everything from CCG tournaments to birthday parties takes place in. You want to talk about the marketplace of ideas (And if you do, dear God WHY?) then this is the marketplace of humanity. People being people. Messy, untidy, grumpy, unique.

The alien is of course the Visitantes and I love the careful choice Ham makes to name them that way. Also the way this story drip feeds us the world building is wonderful. The slow reveal of the game being a visible, branching tree of possibilities, the pieces, the difference between the ‘true’ game and the ersatz. So smart, and subtle.

But what I really love about this is the universality. Emmett’s a good kid, balanced and calm and clever but also just starting to get a chip on his shoulder about how smart he is. I’ve been there. I think a lot of you have too. That moment where you sail out from confidence into arrogance, and how difficult the journey there, and back is. I love too how his final opponent is the same kid, just from a different direction. What he and Emmett don’t have in common versus what they do. That final moment and the realisation that the real game being played here is one they both get to win, just at slightly different speeds. I’m reminded of this Reiner Knizia quote:

“The goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.” 

 Lovely, subtle work. Thanks to all. 

Thanks, folks.

 

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Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International license. Download and listen to the episode on any device you like, but don’t change it or sell it. Theme music is by permission of Daikaijiu.

We’ll see you next week. Before then, remember, take a hold of the hand that breaks the fall.

We’ll see you next time, folks. Until then, have fun. Maybe play a game or two…