Koji Mizutani lay down an array of stones on his Go board, reconstructing Monday's game against the Meijin. He occasionally glanced at the phone by his recliner as he went. He was expecting a call.
Koji was an unprepossessing man with a shock of grizzled hair and bags beneath his eyes. At 26, he looked 46. Maybe it was his sallow complexion that gave observers the impression that he was chronically malnourished. Or maybe it was his bony cheeks that jutted out like rock outcroppings. Whatever it was, people always assumed him older than his actual age.
He'd never been very good at chasing girls or following pop culture. In school, he had never participated in sports or traditional extracurricular activities. Socializing came as a chore to him, and he refused to speak up in class unless he absolutely had to. Until 5th grade, his classmates knew him as the resident deaf-mute. The runt. There's always one in every grade, they would whisper to each other. It's not that he disliked talking. Words just polluted his concentration. To feed the demon that possessed him, he had to clear his mind of cant.
Go.
He learned how to hold a stone before he learned how to hold a bottle. For as long as he could remember, Go had been an integral part of his existence. His memory consisted of little other than volumes upon volumes of matches, tactics, and patterns. Even from age four, practice sessions consumed so much of his time that it impinged on his sleep. He memorized games and absorbed strategies. More often than not, he played until his finger bones felt like brittle iron. He trained every day without fail. Perhaps that was the exception to the rule that all rules have exceptions.
Blazing hotter and brighter than his passion to play Go, however, was his will to win. Competition of any sort roused a profound, animalistic drive within him. He hungered. Measly successes only propelled him to seek out tougher opponents and claim more lopsided victories. He would stop at nothing until he had overpowered the best of the best in Go. And to accomplish this goal, he resolved to use whatever means necessary, even if that included cheating.
At age 7, he played an exhibition match against an Insei from his district high school. Koji played as Black, and the game eventually entered Yose with him trailing by only half a moku. It was then that he unraveled a hidden White stone from beneath the table and deposited it in his own agehama*, prevailing by the half-moku that should have secured his defeat. He was never caught.
His father, a 3-dan pro, often traveled to other cities to compete in matches, so he hired tutors to teach him Go in his stead. Koji found out quickly that he could trounce them without effort, and he refused to waste any more time with those "charlatans". By age 10, Koji could play evenly against his father. The next year, Koji enrolled as an Insei, and the year after that, he became a pro, winning all his matches by large margins.
He conquered the low-dan circuit easily enough, winning a series of minor titles across Asia and humiliating players four times his age in the process. The International Go Federation named him Rookie of the Year and bestowed upon him a 6-dan title. It was then that he encountered opponents that he could not defeat so handily. He had arrived at an impasse.
His hard work had carried him this far in the world of professional Go, above the throng of Insei and the hordes of low-dan pros, but at the top echelon of players, things were different. Here, everyone worked as diligently as he did, so it wasn't a matter of toil as it was of talent. Contrary to popular wisdom, the speed at which someone learns a new skill isn't a direct measurement of talent but only an indirect reflection of it. Real talent dictates not how fast but how far you can go. In other words, talent is aptitude. And aptitude isn't something you can gauge easily. It only reveals itself when you reach your limit, and that may not occur until you've invested years into the craft. And once you've hiked up the learning curve, mastered the elements, and leased out a shard of your soul to get there, you may find out that you're nothing special after all and that your asshole neighbor is actually a Go genius, if he would only pick up a stone. This is what happened to Koji Mizutani.
He almost quit Go entirely. For a year, he left the circuit and sojourned in the United States. No one knew what he did during his stay. Some said he traveled there to spar with the American pros, others said he sought quiet meditation in the Appalachian mountains, but most claimed he simply went there to escape the vicious world of professional Go and rethink his career path. Whatever happened, he had changed. When Mizutani reentered the pro Go circuit the next year, he played with his characteristic attacking style. But more unsettling were the "psychological moves" that threw off his opponents. This combination of offense and intimidation helped him attain his first major title at age 17. By the end of the year, A Chinese Go columnist claimed that in his hands, a stone was more dangerous than a revolver.
Koji inspected the saturated board in front of him. He picked up a stone in his fingers and held it against the indoor light. He nodded thoughtfully and set it back down. That was the move that won him the game against the Meijin. He was now ahead in the match for the Asia Cup, historically the most prestigious tournament in Go. It was to be a best-out-of-nine series with one game played every week. Participants often complained about the length between games, but this had been the tradition since the Heian era when the emperor believed that contestants ought to play only when the moon was half-light, half-shadow, so as to bestow a fair chance upon each side. Modern constraints lowered the interval between games to one week, and promoters were happy to keep it that way, since the prolonged schedule allowed fans to generate more buzz, which led to a higher viewership and more merchandise sold.
For the past week, he'd been preparing obsessively for the match, learning and relearning the Meijin's playing style, and employing a laserlike focus to refine his own tactics. Koji had a losing record against him, which peeved him to no end.
But now he was distracted. It was like trying to read a book while a boombox right next to his ear screeched out a high-pitched whine. He sat back in his recliner and released a frustrated sigh.
The phone rang.
Koji snapped the receiver off the hook and pressed it against the side of his head. "Yeah?"
"It's me," said a familiar, oily voice.
"I know it is, and I know what you're going to say."
"Yes?"
"Why," started Koji, "did they play in the center?"
"Correct, my friend. And why did they do that?"
"I don't know. I'm wondering that myself."
"Well, that doesn't seem to be helping."
Koji sighed.
"So, tell me what happened," said the voice.
"A user named Sai showed up."
"Sai? Who's that?"
"He might as well be Jesus. Or the Beatles. Wasn't it Ringo who said they were more popular than Jesus? Or was that Lennon?"
"What the hell are you trying to say?"
Koji lifted a Go stone from the board and massaged the grooveless edges with his fingertips. He always enjoyed that sensation. It eased his mind. "Ah, it was Lennon!" he exclaimed.
"Huh?"
"Look, what I'm trying to say is that this Sai person really shook up the board. He posted a thread at around 8 o'clock last night, and the board just had a conniption. Totally, utterly, absolutely apeshit. You know what I'm saying? Not even a primetime report showing footage of a presidential candidate committing rape and murder could shift votes that quickly. I've never seen anything like it."
"What do you know about this guy?"
"All I know is that he was a big thing on NetGo a few years ago. He crushed all of the players who challenged him, including a few really strong amateurs and even a couple of pros. I wasn't there to witness it; I read all of that in one of the threads someone created to explain why he was such a big deal. I also read from that topic that he beat the Meijin. Quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself."
"Don't flatter yourself, boyo. You still have to win four more games to win the title."
"True."
"And remember: we may be old friends, but we're also business partners, and we both know very well that you can't beat the Meijin on your own. You need my help. You need Shusaku's help."
"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Koji. He tossed the stone up and down in his hand. "I'm trying my best."
"That excused stop working at the end of grade school. I would know. I'm a university professor."
"It was a freak occurrence. Or a new variable to the equation, if that suits you. But either way, this Sai person is going to be a problem."
"I don't understand. Does this guy have a tag? Is he a pro?"
"No tag. Not a pro. It's just that he's apparently Bigfoot, James Bond, and Moses all wrapped into one package. He's a walking myth. An anonymous celebrity. Everyone wants a piece of him. And he can influence the votes with that kind of popularity."
"Yeah. And you're just as popular, except you're a 9-dan pro, right? Why are we having this discussion?"
"He's not just an ordinary player. I've looked up some of his past games. He plays at my level, maybe even at a higher level."
"Well, now. That has to mean a lot coming from an arrogant bastard like yourself."
Koji laughed. "Fuck you, Sam."
"But joking aside, is he really that good?"
"No doubt. He plays as well as Shusaku. The player, I mean. Not the machine."
"So, what are we gonna do?"
"I'll try to divert them to the corner. All the amateurs listen to whoever gives off the impression that he knows what the heck he's talking about. It could be me, or it could be Sai. But it seems at least that the other pros are with me on this one. They're too nervous and conservative to fight for the center. So, I'll just keep leveraging the pros to try and convince the amateurs to avoid the center."
"I guess that's all we can do."
"One more thing. I want to know why you want me to keep convincing NetGo to keep the battle in the corner. Because I'm just as clueless as they are in the matter."
"Christ, Koji. Not this again."
"Look, for someone who helped to design Shusaku, I don't know a whole damned much about it."
"That's because you didn't contribute a whole damned much into it. You just suggested a few things here and there. Besides, that was for the old Shusaku. This is a new build almost from the ground up."
"Whatever. The issue is that now that they've actually played in the center, something's happened, and I want to know what it is. I mean, I feel like I'm trapped in a room with a fire burning right outside the door. I just want to know how hot it is."
A pause on the other end. "Okay," said the voice. "But you better pay attention, because I'm not going to repeat myself."
"I'm listening."
"It's like this: Shusaku isn't perfect. You know that. It can't even beat a pro in a traditional game that starts out at the edges. But we figured out that if you lay a few stones in the center first, it plays exponentially better."
"Why's that?"
"It's complicated, Koji. I don't have time to explain all the math to you. Just know that the heuristic I designed for the machine functions a lot more efficiently if it's got stones in the center to work with. I know that sounds paradoxical, but you'll have to take my word for it."
"And how many stones does Shusaku need in the center for it to work?"
"The optimum is six, but that's only if the opponent doesn't fight for the center. If Shusaku has one stone in the center, and the other side has one stone, then Shusaku's zero net stones in the center. Just subtract the number of stones from each other. Right now, at one extra stone in the center, it can maybe beat a skilled amateur. At two stones, it can beat a low level pro, at three stones, a mid level pro, at four stones, a high level pro, at five stones, a top level pro, and at six, Shusaku can play perfectly. Well, not perfectly, but for all intents and purposes, you can say that. I'm not a picky guy."
"I see. Interesting."
"I'm glad you found it so," said the voice. "Now you understand how important it is to get NetGo away from the center. I don't think I need to remind you that ThinkingMachines is staking a million dollars on this. If we win, we'll have proven to the world that Shusaku is unbeatable. We'll possess the strongest Go playing program on a single CD-ROM. Do you know how much that CD would be worth?"
"Probably still not enough to fill up my Mazda."
"Oh, I guarantee it will. In fact, it'll buy you a new Mazda. And then you can make a thousand copies of the CD and buy a thousand new Mazdas."
"Why the hell would I want a thousand new Mazdas? I'll just buy a Lamborghini instead."
"Whatever you like. On the flip side, if we lose I'm never getting another dime from TM in funding ever again. Not only that, I've anted my reputation on this challenge and on you, Koji. You need to pull through for me. Don't disappoint me."
"I'll try not to."
"By the way," he said, "your next game against the Meijin is next Monday, right?"
"Yeah."
"Is everything in place? Does anyone suspect anything?"
"Works just fine. Like usual. You just send the moves when I signal for it, and I can take care of the rest."
"Okay. And now that I've told you about how the new Shusaku works, don't be an idiot and go placing six stones in the center or anything like that. Use it when you're in a pinch, but don't rely on it. Maybe once in every five moves at most. I think you know that already. I'm sure you can play evenly against the Meijin on the other four moves.
"That's so sweet for you to say that about me, Sam. You really are a darling."
"I'm glad I mean so much to you. You ought to buy me a nice lobster dinner when you take the title."
"I thought you'd have gotten sick of seafood by now, having lived in Boston for, what, twenty years?"
"Fish, perhaps. Lobster, never."
"Lobster it is, then. I'll give you an update at the end of the week."
"I'll be expecting it. Goodbye, Koji."
"Sayonara, Samuel."
Koji hung up the phone, feeling a bit better about the challenge and his title match against the Meijin. He rolled back his shirt sleeve and clenched his fist. For almost a decade, that subtle little gesture would reliably trigger a tiny subcutaneous implant to emit a radio signal to the Shusaku machine in Tokyo and prompt it to spit back the coordinates of the move it had calculated for him in the form of soft electrical shocks. Ten jolts in sequence followed by a pause followed by two jolts meant for him to play at 10-2. Those shocks used to startle him, like a boy bucking in his seat when his pop tarts ejected from the toaster, but they didn't bother him anymore. He'd gotten used to them.
His trump card. His lifeline. He didn't much give a damn about honor. He was going to humiliate the Meijin one way or another. His desire to win had shuffled off any scruples he may have had a long, long time ago.
Koji sank back into his recliner and continued to manipulate the stone with his fingertips. It helped him think, and he had a lot of thinking to do.
*An agehama is the lid of the bowl that holds the Go stones. Traditionally, captured stones are placed there and added to the player's score at the end of the game.
**Author's Notes: I have no clue what's going to happen.