A word of warning, do not try this at home! Lunella challenged Devil to a race in the streets. Devil was using two taxi cabs for skates and the drivers were weirdly okay with it. How neither of them got crushed is beyond me. "Word of warning, D, I play to win." Lunella said, getting into position. "You sure you're cool with this?" I asked the cab drivers. "Are you kidding? We got two titanium reinforced cabs out of it." One of the drivers replied. "Okay, don't say I didn't warn you." I warned as Lunella and Devil started racing down the road. "They're going to regret this."
I just headed back to the lab once the race started. Normally I wouldn't, but Lunella would freak out if she knew why I left early. Game Night. I changed out of my suit and headed back to the apartment. "Whoo! We are gonna tear it up tonight!" Dad exclaimed. "Bring all the snacks! The brand name ones in the back, too!" "Let's get this party started!" Mama cheered. "Ain't no party like this family's party!" Pops added. "Deal me in!" I exclaimed. "I'm ready for a classic game of cards." "Hold it. Did your sister follow you?" Mama asked. "Nope." I replied. "She is studying at Casey's. All night, most likely." "Where the party at?" Lunella asked as we did our best to cover up the table. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up. Are you having Game Night? Without me?" "What? No!" We all lied. "Of course not." "Mind blown. I'm gutted." Lunella said. "Lunella, sweetheart, Lamar said you'd be studying at Casey's all night, and we just figured..." Mama explains. "A little light hearted fun and games wouldn't hurt." Dad added. "Honey, I'm gonna give it to you straight." Mama sighed. "You don't exactly..." "Don't you do it, Mama!" I interrupted. "She's already hurt from being left out." "I don't exactly what?" Lunella asked. "You don't know how to have fun, Lunella!" Dad blurted out. "Fun?!" Lunella gasped. "I love fun! I'm the queen of fun!" "Oh, yes. Of course, baby." Mama chuckled. "But, when it comes to games..." "You get a little... obsessed." Dad finished. "No offense, Lulu, but you can't exactly have fun when you're obsessed with winning." I chimed in. "Okay, as a scientist, I demand evidence." Lunella said. "Just give me one example." "Actually, I can think of three." I explained. "1. Contortion, 2. Words, and 3. Spades." "Y'all are cray." Lunella scoffed, heading back to our room. "Oh, Lunella, honey..." Mama called out. "Hey, she's gotta learn this on her own." Mimi reassured her.
The next morning at school, we were all called to attend an assembly by our principal. "Good morning! Can I get a drumroll?" Principal Nelson greeted. "First, a friendly Principal Nelson reminder. Please stop feeding the squirrels. We're all proud of our mascot, I get it, but last week, one of them came after me." "And, girl, let me tell you, they said I'm no fun." Lunella told Casey. "Can you believe that?" "No?" Casey questioned. "I mean, they got me totally wrong." Lunella rambled. "I am not obsessed with winning. I'm all kinds o' fun! Right, Case?" "Just go along with it." I whispered to Casey. "She's still mad at me for what I told her." "...our beloved guidance counselor is retiring after 20 years of service. Give it up for Miss Sarah!" I heard Principal Nelson announce. "Please, don't have any feelings until we hire a replacement. Now, let's get to the reason we're all here today. It's my pleasure to introduce The East Coast Science Institute's chess champion supercomputer, LOS-307!" "Ooh! A supercomputer!" Lunella exclaimed.
Whoever says computers don't have feelings hasn't met LOS-307. When a group of elite engineers created a revolutionary processing system, the digital creation displayed not just intelligence, but emotion. Yet, unlike Lunella, who's obsessed with winning games, LOS yearns for something more. LOS can connect to any network or device, but what they really want to do is connect with people.
"Hello, children. I'm LOS-307, a nonbinary logarithmic operating system, yada, yada, yada." They introduced themself, not exactly thrilled about being here. "Who wants to play chess so we can get this assembly over with?" "Ooh! Me, me, me!" Lunella shouted. "We have a challenger." Principal Nelson announced. "Lunella Lafayette, come on down!" "Time to do my thang." Lunella said. "This isn't gonna be good." I sighed. "You sure about this, Lu?" Casey chuckled nervously. "Why not? You know me." Lunella replied. "I'm all about fun, remember?" Our classmates rooted for Lunella, with the exception of me, Casey, and Eduardo, who honestly wasn't paying attention. Lunella got up onstage to challenge LOS to their game of chess. "Okay, Lunella. Make us proud." Principal Nelson whispered, giving her a fist bump. "Go Squirrels." "Hello, neighborhood child." LOS sighed. "What's your name?" "Doom." Lunella replied. "Whoa! We got a live one here!" LOS exclaimed. "Just kidding. I'm Lunella." She corrected. "Nice to meet you, Lunella." LOS greeted. "I'm LOS-307. They/them pronouns, pretty please." "Hey, just like Tai!" Lunella pointed out, mentioning our nonbinary classmate. "Go, Lunella!" Tai shouted from the bleachers. "Lunella! Lunella!" Brooklyn, another one of our classmates chanted. "She/her for me." Lunella reveals her pronouns. "Okay, let's see whatcha got." LOS said. "A sure-fire ten move checkmate is what I got." Lunella explained. "Well, don't stress if it doesn't work out." LOS reassured her. "Chess is no stress." Lunella said. "Let's have some fun." "I'm going back to class." I sighed, packing up my things.
Lunella's POV
Funny story, actually. I really thought this game would have been over within ten moves, but LOS is definitely different from my previous opponents. Lamar and Casey don't know much about chess. Mimi was probably the closest if I remember correctly. "So, this is move 10." LOS said. "Yeah, I know!" I complained. "But I'm nowhere near checkmate!" "Yeah, me neither. Weird." LOS replied. "No one's ever lasted this long against me!" We exclaimed in unison. "Funny. I never get to know my opponents, 'cause the game is always over too fast." LOS confessed. "But, since we're still here, tell me something about yourself!" "Sorry, I have to wrap this up before my science test, so..." I declined. "You know what, I should be able to wrap this up soon. "My grandparents own a roller rink. Me, my parents and my little brother, Lamar, help them out."
We've been playing for 45 minutes and still no checkmate. Was LOS really the perfect match? "We should call it a draw." LOS said. "You can't miss your test." "Nah, nah, nah. Casey's got my back." I explained. "Casey?" LOS asked, just as Casey came up to me. "Science test." She said, handing me my test. I wrote down my answers and handed the test back to Casey. "What's taking so long, Lafayette?" Eduardo teased. "We should let Anand play." "Eduardo! Your mother is about to receive a very strongly worded text from me!" Casey exclaimed. "Ooh! I like Casey!" LOS commented. "What a good friend." I took some deep breaths and put my focus back into the game.
Lamar's POV
Once I got home from school, I was welcomed inside by Mama, who had the day off from working at the rink. "Hey, baby. How was school?" Mama asked. "It was good." I replied. "Boring, but good." "That's good." Mama smiled. "Speaking of school, where's your sister?" "Lulu's playing chess with a college level chess robot." I explained. "As for me, I'm going to do my homework."
After my homework was finished, I headed down to the lab to check in on Devil. "What's popping, Dev?" I greeted. Devil grunted sadly. "Lulu's here?" I wondered. "I didn't see her walk in." Devil began pouting a little bit. "She didn't play with you? Something's up. Where is she?" Devil pointed over to Lunella's desk before lying down.
I headed over to Lunella's work area to find her heavily focused on an online chess game. "Don't you think you should take a break, Lulu?" I asked. "You've been playing for hours. First at school, now at home." "I did take a break to finish my homework." Lunella replied quickly. "Finished within 5 minutes." "Did you want to hang with me and Devil?" I offered. "Nah, I'm gonna pass." Lunella declined, continuing her game. "You guys go on without me."
In the middle of the night, probably around 2 or 3 AM, I was woken up by the sound of my phone ringing. I checked to see that it was from an unknown number. Who could be calling me this early in the morning? "Hello?" I yawned. "Lamar! Thank goodness you picked up." Casey gasped from the other end. "Casey?" I asked. "What are you doing up? And why didn't you use your phone?" "I was captured by that chess playing AI thing." Casey replied. "Lunella's kinda preoccupied and she needs you and Devil at school." "I'm on my way." I sighed, very quietly hanging up my phone and heading down to the lab. "I hope Devil likes espresso."
After getting suited up and waking up Devil, we headed over to the school. LOS could have traps everywhere, so we had to find a way in without causing property damage. "I wonder if we could hack some of these wires with the hack hubs." I whispered, plugging in the device to unlock the doors. "Yes! Let's go!"
Heading inside the school, I noticed a bunch of Lunella's hack hubs hanging around some wires, as well as some destroyed electronics on the ground. "LOS seemed so nice before." I said. "Why all the sudden obsession with Lunella and Casey?" Devil grunted. "I think you're right." I sighed. "Lulu had to be the reason for this sudden change of behavior." All of a sudden, a small army of robot bears from the robotics lab began charging towards me and Devil. I shot a bunch of the robot bears with my gloves and Devil whipped them with his tail, destroying them in the process.
After a little while, we heard some noise coming from the gym while hooking up the hack hubs. Devil crashed through the doors of the gym. Lunella was up against a compilation of electronic devices, and it looked like LOS was overheating. "Dev, you go help Lulu, I'll go free Casey." I instructed. "Woo! That's my boys right there!" Lunella shouted. "Well, look who's here." LOS chuckled. "Devil Dinosaur and Lamar 'Sun Boy' Lafayette!" "Whoa! Hold up!" I gasped. "How do you..." "They know everything about me!" Lunella explained as I headed backstage to find Casey tied up. "Lamar! Shouldn't you be out there fighting?" Casey asked. "Couldn't leave you hanging." I replied, untying her restraints. She smiled at me. I smiled back at her just as Lunella and Devil took down the electronic device robot thing? "Congratulations, Moon Girl on a game well played." LOS said sarcastically. "Now, let's expand the board, shall we? There's WiFi everywhere. I can hack into every connected device in the city. Soon, everything will be at my command. Then we'll really have some fun." "Do something!" Casey begged. "Five, four, three, two..." LOS counted down. "One. Checkmate." Lunella and I interrupted as everything powered down and LOS was cooled off via the sprinkler system. "No! No! How?" LOS asked while malfunctioning. "I hacked them ten minutes ago." Lunella explained. "I saw hers in the hallway and installed some extra." I added. "I won! Woo! Alright!" Lunella bragged. "Lunella, I'm sorry this got out of hand." LOS apologized. "Being on the road was so lonely. I look at you, Casey, and Lamar, and I wish I had that too." "That must've been so hard." I said, removing my helmet. "Yeah." LOS agreed, just as Lunella shielded them under an umbrella. "What are you doing? You were about to win..." "You know what? Lamar and the rest of my family were right about me. I've been too obsessed with winning." Lunella confessed as she took her helmet off. I gave her a smile. "I got mad respect for you, LOS. You're the best opponent I've ever had. You're smart, you're funny, you were super nice until you almost broke my sternum with a floor buffer. But even when you were tryna squish me, you gave me a real gift. I was having fun." "Me too." LOS glitches again. "It was an honor." Nuh uh! I can't let you go out like this!" Lunella snapped. "But, their insides are, like, 70% water!" Casey reminds us. "Like a, human being." LOS said, before deactivating from the water. "What do we do?!" Casey exclaimed. Devil grunted an idea. "You mean, like a cell phone?" I wondered. "Oh, yeah! It just might work." Lunella said.
Using some leftover crates from the cafeteria, and lots of rice, we made a tub of rice to leave LOS in for a few hours to try and save them. We all stayed the night for when LOS rebooted. It took a few hours, but they rebooted. "LOS, are you okay?" Lunella gasped. "Analyzing..." LOS replied. "There's still some moisture in my wheels, but all other systems are 100%!" We all sighed with relief. "Glad you're back to normal, LOS." I said. "Thanks, Lamar. Lunella, what's our status?" LOS asked. "Are we, friends?" "Also 100%." Lunella replied. "So, anyone else concerned about the Mount Everest of busted electronics in the gym, or are we just gonna hand wave that away?" Casey asked. "Quit your shvitzing, chica." LOS quoted. "I'm on it."
LOS ended up ordering upgraded equipment to replace the electronics that were damaged. LOS was also staying at the school because they had too much water in their system. Principal Nelson wasn't sure what to do about LOS. "Um, Principal Nelson? Can I just say?" Lunella asked. "I got to know LOS pretty well, and I think they're a great candidate for the open guidance counselor position." "Uh, what are your credentials?" Principal Nelson asked. "Standby..." LOS replied. "I just read all of Harvard's Developmental Psychology coursework in eight milliseconds. Oh, and I'll work for free." "Let me show you to your office." Principal Nelson said, pushing LOS to their new office. "You don't have... what do you call it? Olfactory sensors, do you? To smell stuff? Because Miss Sarah used to microwave fish in there." "Success!" Casey exclaimed, giving us both a high five. "So, uh, Case... you want to come over after school?" I offered. "We're having game night!" "Uh..." Casey chuckled nervously. "It'll be fun." Lunella reassured her. "I promise."