A while back my friend Quinn figured out how to hack a popular chess app. Once we’re in the system we can impersonate the chess bot personalities that people play against, and we’ve had a lot of fun messing with people.
What can I say? We were raised on hidden camera prank shows.
Recently he figured out how to track the player we’re messing with and get into their webcam. That’s what really makes it fun.
The app has these Halloween chess bots people can play against. A skeleton, a witch librarian, that sort of thing. And while you’re playing they make comments. “I’ll bury you with this rook move,” or things like that. It’s a perfect opportunity to really mess with someone.
Quinn is away for the week, but I decided I’d get some good Halloween play in since I didn’t have anything better to do.
I got into the system and posed as the lowest rated bot, a werewolf. In another browser I opened a chess engine to give me the moves. Was it cheating? Yes. But cheating wasn’t the worst thing I was doing anyways. The point wasn’t to be ethical. The point was to mess with people.
It absolutely cracked me up to watch people’s reactions when this supposedly bottom-rated chess bot absolutely tore them apart. I’d watch over the course of the game as their brows tensed and they grew more and more frustrated. More than once I watched the world spin and go black as someone threw their phone down and rage quit.
There was one player I got paired with again and again that day, and it seemed off right from the start. He was wearing a Nixon mask and wriggling uncomfortably in his seat, almost like he was trying to escape his skin. But he kept muttering things under his breath.
Something like, “We’ve got ourselves a comedian, don’t we?”
I typed a response, “A clown and a werewolf both know how to castle their king!” I kept it corny, but I also wanted to hint to the person that I could hear them on the other side. I wanted to get under their skin a bit.
I thought it was just harmless fun.
He grumbled something in response about killing me. Silly, you can’t kill a chess bot.
At one point a famous chess streamer matched popped up on my webcam feed. I checked his livestream and he was speedrunning the Halloween bots to see how fast he could beat all of them. It wasn’t going to go as expected, that’s for sure.
“I’ll just play a trick opening. I want to get these first bots out of the way as fast as possible guys. Fast as possible,” he said.
I plugged his moves into the engine and gave the response.
“That’s really surprising actually. You wouldn’t expect this from a 300 rated bot, but that’s actually how you’re supposed to play this position guys. If this was a real player I might be in trouble actually.”
“A werewolf is better than you expected,” I typed.
“Oh I get it guys. It’s going to play the first few moves great and then its position is going to fall apart.”
We played a few more moves and he got more and more confused as my advantage built. “There’s something strange happening. I should have won this ten moves ago. I’m gonna message my friend D*****. He should know something is up with the chess bots on this website. He’ll figure it out I’m sure guys.”
“A werewolf will know if you call your friend on us,” I typed.
“This has to be some sort of a prank. Some sort of a messed up prank guys. I don’t care. I really don’t care.” He was going to lose in a few moves and he knew it.
“A werewolf doesn’t care either. It really doesn’t care.”
“This isn’t funny. Someone on here is messing me with me. This really isn’t funny.”
I checkmated him with the engine’s moves and the screen went blank.
I was a little worried that messing with someone famous would lead to the chess app patching whatever holes Quinn found to hack us into the system, but the opportunity was too good to waste.
That same creepy guy in the Nixon mask came up on my hacked feed. He wriggled this way and that— really uncomfortable looking.
“I’m really wolfing out Mr. President!” I said.
“Let’s raise the stakes a bit,” the gruff voice said. “If you win this game I’ll take a knife, and cut this throat from end to end.” After that I heard a low groan and he wriggled uncomfortably again. I wondered how he was making the moves as his arms seemed firmly planted on his sides.
“This is a WOLF of a fun!” I typed.
“I’ll take that as a deal, comedian.”
Something about the interaction made me uncomfortable, but I still checkmated him without remorse. After all, nobody is going to actually kill themselves over a bad game against a chess bot, right?
I played a few more games. Nothing remarkable. I started telling players how I hated what they were wearing, describing it in detail. I thought that would really shake them up.
After a couple more rage quits I got paired with the person in the Nixon mask again.
He was utterly still.
“I have a surprise for you Mr. Comedian.”
I played my first move but there was no response.
“People like you think you can do whatever you want Comedian. You can hurt people and it doesn’t matter as long as you hide behind a mask. I don’t think it’s very funny.
But I have a surprise for you. This one had me laughing.”
A large hand reached to the side of the head and pushed. The head in the Nixon mask tipped off of the body, severed completely at the neck.
I caught a gag in my throat. What the hell? Who the hell would do this?
“That’s not all Comedian. I think you’ll really love this next part.”
Whoever was behind that voice grabbed the camera and my view jostled this way and that away from the corpse. The picture settled on the severed head still in the Nixon mask.
“Let’s do a little unmasking, Comedian.” The hand unclasped the mask and it rattled to the ground.
It was Quinn. Beaten, bruised, and lifeless, but I’d recognize him anywhere.
And across his forehead someone had scrawled in a muddy red, “YOU’RE NEXT.”