Intermission

“Attention everyone: 30 moves have elapsed. At this time play will be suspended for a rest period for the players and performers.”

This rule had rarely been exercised but strange as it may seem, the performers were all paid cast members of the show and as such had legal rights to breaks. Especially the Queen’s and kings, who were outright hourly employees of the Living Chess Club.

The White Queen walked over to her spouse.

“This is getting out of hand, I’m not sure if these two are any of the regular players or they’re just two rich idiots who bought the rights to play a match.”

At this point the two completely dropped their personas.

“April, I’m starting to think you’re right” Lewis Pennington said to his wife.

“Duh…” she said “we have another 30 moves before the judges call this match for stalling.”

“Or if the Black controller makes another two mistakes.” Lewis reminded her. While not much was made of it, Black’s earlier call to move a pawn past a knight blocking his path had drawn a penalty. Three such penalties was an automatic match loss.

“Let’s just hope they don’t do anything stupid.”

The automatic voice called for all still active peices to return to their positions. The two queen kissed and White went back to her spot.