Sam found himself in a pitch-dark cavern. He knew with that strange certainty of dreams that there was nothing to be found behind him, and that forward was the only option. So he moved forward, and in that slip-slide of sleepers found himself standing on a balcony.
The balcony overlooked a broad expanse of grassy plain. Sam noted that the grass was two colored, with a patch of dark green surrounded on all four sides with a patch of light green. What interested Sam, however, were the inhabitants of the plain. There were thousands of them, all advancing slowly across the grassy squares. Each, as they marched, made a strange gesture that involved a lift of the elbows and a wave of the hands. The gesture produced a glowing black liquid that they deposited into buckets slung over their backs with an expression of delighted wonder. After a few repetitions, a tall man – or was it a castle? – slid by and collected the substance they were producing. He fed it into a machine, which in turn produced the light that enabled Sam to see the plain upon which they stood.
But as they worked on, their smiles grew harder, and eventually faded. Some grew ill, and Sam knew (though he could not have said how) that the illness was caused by the black liquid. Still the castle-man encouraged them to work. A man on a horse rode up, and began whipping the laborers with a long, cruel whip. They cried out, but still he whipped them. Some collapsed and did not rise again.
Sam blinked, horrified by the cruelty. When he looked back, he saw that there were only eight laborers, standing in a row like pawns; that the horseman with the whip was a Knight, and that the encouraging castle-man was a Rook. The Black King and Queen encouraged them with shouted orders. He looked down the two-colored field, noting now that it was a chess service, to find the White, and see if they treated their pawns as cruelly as the Black. What he saw was a single Pawn, but rather than the familiar slit-faced figurine, he saw a beautiful young woman, dressed in robes of shimmering white. As he watched she made the gesture that produced the black liquid, but subtlely altered, so that her very hands glowed with the light of pure energy, becoming brighter and brighter, until they finally eclipsed the machine that produced the light.
The Black was so outraged by this that the Black King ordered the Queen out. She moved illegally past her own laboring pawns, darted across squares she should not have been able to cross, and took the beautiful White Pawn. There arose an outcry from the White, which Sam saw dimly, and from above; Sam guessed the voices from beyond the chess service to be the Arbiters. However, a Black Knight Sam hadn't noticed lashed forward, injuring the White Knight (which, Sam noted with horror, had Josh's face) and taking the White Queen, who was not the White Queen at all, but Hoynes.
Sam let out a strangled cry, but before he could protest the other White Knight, the one with CJ's face, and a Bishop that looked like Leo captured the Black Knight, on King Bartlet's orders. Suddenly, shockingly, Sam found himself no longer a spectator, but another White Pawn in the seventh row. King Bartlet ordered him to advance, and he did. Out of nowhere the Chief Justice appeared and proclaimed him the White Vice President, to be called Queen for the sake of convenience. Sam knew that even as Queen he was threatened on all sides, by King, Knight, Bishop and Rook, but he trusted in the White King to use him appropriately.
However, before Sam could move again, a cry was taken up. "Shah mat!" someone screamed. And before Sam could turn, the cry was taken up by every piece on the board. "Shah mat!"
And by that same dreamer's reflex, Sam knew what the call meant.
Checkmate.