The Checkered Cell

            “Get to your feet!” the masked man demanded.

            Minji slyly slid the rock under her tray lid as she stood up.  The tall black robed figure stepped even closer to the children.

            “Hand it over now, and we might have mercy!” he boomed.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Minji retorted.  “Leave us alone!”

            “We’ll see about that!”

            Alan quivered in fear as the man thoroughly searched the children.  When he was satisfied that they didn’t have it on them, he looked over at their trays of food.  He walked over and reached down to look under Minji’s tray lid.  As he reached for it, she let out a small gasp.

            Minji tried to think of what she would do when the man found the stone.  Should she run for it?  Should she tell him that she doesn’t know how it got there?  Both options seemed very unlikely to work.  Most of all, she wished more than anything that bread and broccoli were the only things under that lid.

            The tall man lifted the lid quickly as if to say “aha!”  When, he looked down, though there was nothing there but a couple pieces of bread and two bowls of broccoli.  He quickly searched Alan’s tray but found nothing there either.

            He turned to look at Alan and Minji.  The painted-on eyes of his mask seemed to look right through them.  After a moment, he walked on to search more children.

            Alan realized that he had forgotten to breathe for some time and took in a big gasp of air.  He looked at Minji’s tray.  One of the bowls of broccoli began to change shape.  It turned into the stone!  Minji saw this too, so she quickly grabbed it and stuffed it into her pocket before anyone saw it.

            Just then, another of the tall men walked over to Alan.  He looked Alan over and then yelled back to some others.

            “Who is this boy?” The man yelled in a screeching voice.

            A couple others came over and stared at Alan.  They talked in whispers amongst themselves.  Finally, one spoke.

            “We have no memory of taking him.” The man said.  “He must be a stowaway.”

            “Take him and lock him up.”  The first man ordered.  “We’ll soon find out who he is.  Everyone who enters this ship must register with the computer.”

            The men grabbed Alan and started leading him away.  Minji ran at them in a rage.

            “Let him go!” she demanded as she kicked one of the men in the shin.

            “Take her, too.” The first man ordered.  “She seems like a trouble maker.”

            The children were dragged away down many various bland hallways and through countless doors until they finally stopped in front of one of them.  The door opened, and their captors tossed them in.  As they hit the cold floor, they heard the door shut.

            The room’s four walls, floor, ceiling, and door were all covered in a continuous black and white checkered pattern.  Some of the black squares had white dots inside them.  Alan sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and wondered what was going to happen to them.

            Minji took the stone from her pocket.  She turned it over in her hands as she paced the room.

            “I wonder how this thing works.” She said to herself.  “This could be pretty useful if we figure out how to make it change shape.”

            “I don’t know” admitted Alan.  “All I know is that I really wanted a hamburger, and then it looked like a hamburger.”

            “Yes…” Minji said thoughtfully.  “and I wanted it to look like food, and it did...”

            “I think I’ve got it!” exclaimed Alan.  “It changes to look like what you most want at that moment!”

            “Well, I most want a way out of here.”  Minji replied.

            Suddenly, the stone began to change.  It became longer and flatter as well as darker.  Soon, Minji was holding a flat, round, black stone instead of the silver stone.

            “So much for that!  It’s still just a stone.” she said and threw it to the floor.  It came to rest in the middle of a black square.

            Alan recognized something familiar.  There were some white dots on some of the other black squares.  The black stone was on a black square as well.

            “I know this game!” Alan shouted.  “This is checkers.  We have to keep that stone on the black squares and get it to the door without being captured.  In Checkers, black goes first.”

            He reached down and moved the piece onto another square closer to the door.  He looked up and noticed one of the white dots move from a square on the wall onto another black square on the floor.  It was getting closer to his piece.  He moved diagonally the other way, bypassing the piece.

            Alan had a lot of practice playing checkers with his father, and he got the piece two rows away from the door.  Then a white piece moved onto the space by the door and blocked his way.  There was no way he could move forward without being captured.  It looked like the game was over.

            “I can’t move any more.” said Alan. “I can’t move backwards because I’m not a king.  If I move forward, that piece will have to take me even if it didn’t want to.  In Checkers, you must capture any piece if you can capture it.”

            “What happens if we get captured?” Minji asked with a concerned look.

            “I don’t know…” Alan hesitantly replied.

            All manner of possible answers were drifting through his head, though.  Each was more horrible than the last.