# Chapter V
## A Game Of Chess

"I do not understand." said Chloe while a new board of chess was sitting in front of them. They were about to start a blitz. It seemed like Sheiny had found a full set of chess in Mr. Hambleton's shed, even with a proper chess clock. It was a time between the scenes. No pieces were yet moved from their positions. White pieces were on Chloe's side.

"What would be harmful in making software that is not useful, like games for example, to be not Free? It's a form of art after all." said Chloe while moving a pawn to E4. "Art has a different criteria, then software, yes..." said Sheiny, moving a knight to C6 "...all we want from art is it to be share-able.". Chloe thought for a while and moved a knight to F3 without uttering a word. "Take for example VLC..." Sheiny continued "...it's Free Software to play, usually, non free files." Sheiny responded with a pawn on D5, revealing the queen "It would be almost alright if, say, game data, textures and a like would be proprietary, but that the software would be free.". "The game engine?" asked Chloe while making her next move in chess. It was weird to her that Sheiny had revealed her queen. Anyways, Chloe moved a bishop to D3. "No quite the game engine..." Sheiny told Chloe when moving her second knight to F6 "... the game engine is a collection of pre-made software to built games simpler. But the game developers always add more to it...". Chloe kept listening, silently taking Sheiny's pawn with her own at D5. Sheiny stopped talking. Chloe was first who have taken a piece. This surprised Sheiny a little bit. "What was I saying?..." Sheiny mumbled deciding on the next move. As a form of vicious revenge Sheiny took Chloe's pawn, the one that took hers a step earlier on D5, with non other but her majesty's queen her self. "The idea of a game engine is borrowed from Free Software it self..." Sheiny continued "...the problem is that Games are considered new software.". "Not copylefted?" Chloe asked while moving a knight to C3 in hopes of taking the queen. "That's exactly what I'm talking about..." says Sheiny while moving her queen away to H5 "... Game Engines are almost like Free Software. Some game engines give you the four freedoms. Others don't, but the point is that you are using parts of it's object code to make more object code.". Chloe, in some kind of panic, castled with the rook on the right. Moving the king to G1 and the rook to F1 in one move. "In a game made with a game engine, the source code would be both, the source of the engine and of the logic built on-top of the engine." Sheiny continued "The game art, if not the part of the game binary and interchangeable with different art has no meaning to the software of the game. You could substitute them with other images and still play the game.". Sheiny stopped talking and moved a bishop to G4. "But what would it change if the logic is free or not?" asked Chloe while moving pawn to H3 in a desperate attempt to take out the bishop "People want to play the games unchanged, like they watch movies, or read books. What is the point here?". "Nonsense." said Sheiny while moving her knight to E5. "Absolute, nonsense..." Chloe agreed, she saw a possibility of taking Sheiny's knight with her own at this spot. But she didn't. She took the bishop that she intended to take earlier on G4 with a pawn. "... I could've taken your knight." she said to Sheiny. Sheiny, instead of moving her knight out of there, added the second knight around it, on G4. Chloe looked all confused. Why didn't Sheiny moved her knight away from there? She didn't think much and took Sheiny's knight at E5 with her own. "Nonsense!" started Sheiny again "People do mods. People do alternative cuts of films. People write fan-fiction stories about their favourite characters. This freedom should exist." Sheiny moved the queen to H2. Checkmate! Chloe has lost the battle.

After a few pointless attempts at saving her king from the checkmate, Chloe tried to argue further. "*He* didn't care." she said "*He* was completely in the game for several hours, while it was the unaltered original version.". "*He* was an addicted imbecile." stated Sheiny "The game had probably a lot to do with it. Perhaps it was built with a team of talented physiologists. The art, the animation, the music, the loot boxes where all designed for one thing and one thing only, to induce as much addiction as possible. With a Free Game it's possible to alter it, so it's not addicting as much. It's possible to change anything at all with your own copy. The original will always be there. If people want to play the addictive version, they could install the original. Or they could install your version if you choose to share it. Or the original developer could agree with you and alter the original to include your changes. With Free Software it's all possible and it should be possible.". "But then..." Chloe started her last attempt "the original will be overwritten and no longer existing.". "Well, if nobody keeps a copy of the original it could be the case" answered Sheiny without thinking much "... but for the most part all copies are stored somewhere. In git, for example, every change is recorded and back-traceable. No version and no version's source code is usually lost."

Chloe sat there, looking at the checkmate and thinking about computer games and the boy with long hair. Sheiny was thinking of Mendel. It had to be a week since she last saw him. Or maybe even two weeks. From the constant cycle of work and school it was very hard to tell for certain. His gaze was haunting her memories. Not stalking per say, but probably just looking at her with an unsure question of whether he knew her before. Thoughts of quantum physics passed through her mind. Mendel said that his long gone girlfriend was looking somewhat similarly to Sheiny. Or was it that Mendel was just trying to piece her image from Sheiny's? It didn't matter. For an instance a ludicrous thought of Mendel being a man from the future. From times when she is his girlfriend. Suddenly, some inexplicable event had to have brought him back in time to current days. He was looking in the same neighbourhood for the same girl. Finding Sheiny. A little girl, only slightly resembling his future girlfriend.

But of course it was all nonsense. A sweet dream, induced by inevitability that Mendel is somehow unchangeable in his love toward that mysterious woman. Sheiny thought to tell him that his girlfriend had died. Or that she stopped loving him. But she didn't even know who it was. And asking him this, or lying to him about her later, was too cruel for her. She killed a man, she thought. How is there more cruel than that? She was trying to calm herself by thinking that it all was just a mistake. That she didn't really want to kill him. That he deserved it somehow. But what's done is done. She wanted to owe to never carry a weapon again. But what if the circumstances will require it? She wanted to forget about the deed, but the deed was too strong to forget it. And if not the killing of that man, just a few minutes prior she nearly killed her best friend for envy.

"Am I a cruel bitch?" asked Sheiny, half crying from Chloe. Chloe understood what Sheiny was referring to. She came closer and hugged her tight. "You saved my life." Chloe told her. "But I wanted to kill you prior." Sheiny said while crying already in full force. "You weren't." said Chloe "... you weren't able to pull that trigger on me. You were like you are now when you pointed that at me. All boo hoo, crying little girl. There was no way you could shoot me. Yes. It was scary. But since that day, I am sure that you are trustworthy. You are a kind soul.". "I wanted to kill you for envy!" said Sheiny. "For love." answered Chloe "It was love. Not envy.".

Sheiny seemed to have filled up with moral. They started filming again. After that Sheiny went not home. She walked a bit further towards the area of Mendel's. The investigation at that place was over. It was rumored that the police have accused some guy that was in frequent battles with that angry man. What happened him is unknown. Probably he is walking free already. There was not a single evidence against him, she thought. But who knows for sure?

Sheiny was about to enter the building as her heart started pounding very rapidly. This place didn't seem right. She remembered the courage she had when filming with Chloe of the first time. And she opened the door. But the heart didn't stop pounding. She could not handle this place. Somebody about it was too scary. And it wasn't Mendel. A few floors above where she is now, she took a life of a man. The trauma came back to her. He was running at her full speed with a knife, she thought. It was self defense. It was okay, she thought. But nothing could stop the beating of her heart. So she left the building.

She remembered that Mendel told her his place of work, when they walked together the first time. It was a wood-chopping little factory right outside the city. It was far away. But it was way better than that damned building. So the next day after school she didn't got to the shed. She took a bus to Mendel instead. When she arrived at the location she was slightly disoriented. It was a very silent place full of tiny factories producing all kinds of rubbish. Many of those factories were closed and abandoned. But a few worked still. A handful of people on each of them was doing some task. And after two or three working factories she saw that wooden-chopping little factory that Mendel had talked about. Her heart started pounding again. This time she liked it. She stepped in and there he was.

He saw her almost immediately and didn't know what to think about it. An instance, he though, she was imaginary. Another man came towards her and asked "What are you doing here, child, looking for somebody?". "It's my daughter" said Mendel. Sheiny was amazed by his wit. By his ability to lie so quickly and perfectly. "Dad..." she said "... I've lost the key from the flat. Mom isn't home. Can I sit here with you meanwhile?". "I finish in half an hour anyways, Sheiny." said Mendel "Are you hungry?".