HRVST Ch. 22: Ancient Games With New Players Remain The Same

As Long As The Rules Remain, New Players Still Play Old Games

Some games are still played because of their deceptive simplicity. The prize remains even if the players change. The outcomes are never certain, whether it was the first round at first light or the last round before the lights go out. Newcomers to the game can still defeat old masters.

Luna, South Aitken Basin, On a train en route to Shackleton Crater, Hyperion

“Shisima,” said the Captain.

“Excuse me?” Tomassina looked up from her equipment check.

The Captain thought about one of his moments on Earth before he went up the well.

“You already know about this card,” said the Captain, as he pulled out the matte back card etched with ‘H R V S T’, “there was also another card, which came from a co-president of the SC.”

The ‘S.C.’, the Space Cooperative. Everyone in the train stopped their equipment and weapons check for a moment and looked at the captain for explanation.

“Before I went up the well, Wellington gave me a business card, that I could show to Nairobi to prove I could be trusted. Its message was ‘With this player, we will reach a body of water we seek’.” The Captain showed the business card to the team.

The card had an octagon, with 4 lines which divided it into 8 slices.

“That’s also on the black card you’ve been carrying around,” said Tomassina.

The captain took out the black card and pressed on it. A small octagon rose from its matte black surface, and then showed the other card with an octagon printed on it.

“It refers to a game, Shisima, which means ‘The Source’, ‘source of water’. You see the octagon printed on this card? It matches the one on this black card from Armstrong’s administrator. It’s a symbol for a very old game, a kind of tic-tac-toe.

Fourlines which divide the octagon into 8 slices. Each player has 3 pieces, called ‘imbalavali’, ‘water bugs’, and they take up 3 spots on the outer spokes of the Octagon. Each player has to line up their 3 pieces in a straight line, a row, so that 1 piece includes the center, where all the lines intersect, at the source, water. The prize.

The head of Nairobi told me I was in the game. I’m one of the 3 pieces.”

Tommy spoke up, “Your friend, was the first piece in this game, right?”

The captain nodded as Tomassina handed back the card to him. He looked at the card and shook his head, “Somebody must have known about me, through Robin, to set this up. First, he or she knew to recruit Robin and then me, and my service record, that I would follow through, and take this hunt all the way up the well.

Next thing you know, I find you, TwoTwo, and the rest of the old unit to help me.”

Tomassina, who returned to cleaning and testing gear, kept talking, “You know, Cap, you could say the SC, the Space Cooperative, has been playing a bigger ‘Shisima’. The 3 offices of the 3 co-presidents, that’s like 3 big, what was that, waterbugs?”

“Waterbugs, imbalavali, yes…”

“Yeah, imbalavali. Funny to think of the SC as a game and the copresidents are pieces.”

“Maybe. Houston knocks out Wellington but Nairobi is playing a double-bluff. She threw Wellington under the bus but in private, they’re on the same side.”

“Damn. You grow up thinking of the SC, its leaders in one way, then see it like this.

You said you’re up here for something else. For Necker. A founding father of the SC, a ghost, an urban myth. I hear things but what to believe? Now, we’re headed straight for him, assuming he’s alive. Is Necker the third piece?”

“No, I came up here, looking for the SC’s “brain”, the sentient ledger. He’s the third piece, or at least, that what I think.

After looking on the Verse, I followed the rumors, straight up the well to Luna.

Before I came up the well, I thought that I was in a game between the SC’s copresidents. But that’s not it at all. This began long before two of them got Robin promoted to be their eyes and ears on the third copresident in Houston.

I thought I was getting evidence, proof to take down ‘Houston’, but he’s a side-show.

Houston might have blinded the SC’s early warning systems before the CMEs hit everyone but even he couldn’t have done it alone. It wasn’t on his initiative. That said, he might have gone along with this but he had his own ambitions for the SC.”

“So it’s Necker. He’s really alive and the one we want?”

“I don’t think so. Nairobi didn’t stop me when I suggested to her that the Ledger was the third piece, and even agreed, saying I had to find and help him.

But who is running the game? Was it Necker?

But the “Harvest”, what’s going on at Shackleton is the real game this whole time.”

Notes:

AI Art lexica prompt

lofi underwater cyberpunk instagram portrait, Pixar style, by Tristan Eaton Stanley Artgerm and Tom Bagshaw.