# The Responder

On the fifth of the month, Kaven looked at the phone in his hands. On the screen was a big blue button, which he had been working himself up to pressing for fifteen minutes now. It was hard to admit that he needed help.

Kaven pressed the button and waited.

It didn’t take long for him to be connected, hardly more than three or four seconds. The operator’s voice was calm and smooth as she picked up. “Hello, engagement services. What’s your location?”

“M and 84th, on the red bench. I'm in a yellow coat.”

There was the sound of rapid keystrokes.

“Are you allergic to dogs?”

“No.”

“We’ll have someone there in four minutes.”

Kaven leaned back against the bench and looked at the sky. His mouth was dry and his eyes ached. He’d been at work for twelve hours and though he’d eaten something, he couldn’t remember what. Four minutes later he was interrupted by a woman in a navy blue shirt, a bandana tied around the lower half of her face, and five large dogs all leashed and looking excitable.

“You the bored guy?” 

Kaven nodded, and got handed a pair of leashes for his trouble. 

“I’m Sivad. Those there are Bolo and Hada. We all could use a little exercise. Up for a bit of a jog?”

Kaven nodded again, and got to his feet. 

“Great,” Sivad said, “We need to go another four blocks north and pick up another bored guy, then we can get a good run in. Let me know if you’ll want to slow down!"

* * *

On the ninth of the month, Kaven looked at the phone is his hands. On the screen was a big blue button, which he had been working himself up to pressing for ten minutes now. He didn't want to need help too much, to be an unnecessary burden. He just couldn't think of anything that sounded fun to do.

Kaven pressed the button and waited.

"Hello, engagement services. What's your location?"

"N and 84th, south corner of the field. I'm in a yellow coat."

"Are you familiar with the works of William the Bard?"

"No? Is that a news service?"

"We'll have someone there in six minutes."

Kaven looked at the phone in his hand. He was tempted to look up William, but instead waited like he was supposed to. Seven minutes later three teenagers came skidding around the corner on rollerblades, laughing at each other as they urged each other to run faster before coming to an abrupt stop right in front of him. They were wearing matching styles of jackets and masked helmets, in three different shades of green. One, the darkest green of pine, managed to force down their laughter long enough to talk.

"You're the one who called engagement services, right?" When Kaven nodded they kept going. "Awesome! Just give us a second, hang on, this is gonna be great."

"It's our first time volunteering-" said the one in the brightest green, a lime so electric it was eyewatering to look at. His young voice cracked on "volunteer."

"-no you don't have to tell them that-"

"-it's fine, it's fine, look we do it from the top, you start-"

Kaven winced. You could turn down whatever the responder from engagement services had in mind, though it was considered rude to hit the blue button again that day. This didn't look like it was going to be good and he considered asking the trio to go away and leave him be, but then, what he'd been doing before they got here was scroll a feed on his phone full of people he didn't know talking about policies he didn't care about in cities he couldn't have pointed to on a map.

The middle one cleared her throat, and the other two chuckled to themselves the straightened up.  "A piece from the works of Bill the Bard."

Pine then launched into a quite a different tone, rehearsed lines from what was apparently a play. "Is all our company here?"

Lime green chimed in "You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip."

And so they went, until the trio went past the part they'd plainly rehearsed and into the rest of the play where they plainly hadn't but had apparently watched enough to stagger through, introducing a stranger to what was evidently their favourite story. It wasn't going to be his favourite, but they did get one laugh out of him at their antics, and it was new. Afterwards they invited him to go to a better performance of a different William play that was being held in a park across town, and lacking anything better to do Kaven went.

* * *

On the eighteenth of the month, Kaven looked again for any theatre productions in town, and finding none pressed the big blue button. He gave his location. This time, unexpectedly, there was no followup question. When the responder arrived, she was dressed in a red so dark it reminded him of astrology pictures of a black hole. Her mask was a wisp of filigree and burgundy, and she glided to a dignified stop at a park table a dozen feet away. 

"You called, saying you were bored."

Her voice was like honey or molasses. Kaven nodded, and the woman withdrew the pieces for some kind of game from her bag and began to lay them out on the table. 

"Tonight we will play a game. This game has stakes." It was just after noon, but she sold the theatricality and somber tone. 

Tone or no, Kaven was confused for a moment. "Engagement services is free. The responders are volunteers, right? I think there's a bit of public funds running the switchboard, but calling is definitely free."

She inclined her head. "The stake is your name. I will explain the rules, and if I win, you have to give me your name. If you win, I will tell you mine."

They played three games for practice, and then one for stakes. Kaven played, and lost, and told her his name. Then the woman set the board up again as it had been halfway through, and pointed out Kaven's key mistake, and they played again from there until he lost again. The game was deep and interesting, though he wouldn't have found it so enchanting if her interest hadn't crackled like a flame beneath her poise. 

When she stood to leave, evening had fallen. Kaven asked her what the name of the game was, and she gave the smallest bow. "It has no name yet."

When he got home he wrote down all the rules he remembered and made his own copy out of cut up shipping boxes.

* * *

He was sure he'd forgotten a rule, but he couldn't remember what. He tried to reinvent what it must be, making patches to prevent the cheap victories he scored playing himself or a couple of friends he hadn't spent much time with lately. They were happy to see him again; work had been leaving him listless for a while.

By the thirtieth of the month though, there came an evening where he was tired of playing himself and his friends were tired of playing. He hit the big blue button and someone arrived who wanted to teach him to stitch and knit. A week later he pressed it and a biologist cheerfully recruited him and half a dozen other bored people to scour one of the larger parks, counting a specific kind of bug while being treated to a lecture on the local ecology. The day after that someone sat down with him to co-write stories, and though he didn't feel good at it they were the kind of person who liked coaxing ideas out of new writers. Everyone who volunteered for engagement services was that sort of person, at least for the activity they offered people.

Then he got the woman in red again. He immediately asked for her to explain the rules again, and took notes this time. She set out the board as she gave them.

"Tonight we will play a game. This game has stakes."

"But you already have my name?"

She nodded her head. "The stake is your number. If I win, you have to give me your contact information. If you win, I will tell you my name."

They played two games for practice, with Kaven trying to map out the implications of the missing rules on the strategies he'd formed. She offered a third practice game, but he declined, feeling uncharacteristically confident. Then she beat him with a series of rapid but elegant decoys so impressive he had her play it out exactly that way again, this time taking notes on how she'd taken him apart without his even realizing.

He gave her his number with the first genuine, beaming smile he'd had in months. They played one more game, and this time she made it last slow and sweet before beating him. 

Before she left, she let him take a picture of the board and the pieces. He hoped she would call, but she didn't.

* * *

Work took twelve hours a day. Sleep took another six or seven. Kaven went to board game luncheons now, though he didn't show anyone other than his friends the game. She hadn't named it, presumably didn't want it to spread until it was ready. He thought there were some tweaks to the rules that would make the lategame more interesting, but kept playing games against himself to be sure. Once in a while he saw the green trio at theatre shows in the park and waved, or met up with Sivad if she needed extra hands to walk the dogs. He still hit the big blue button whenever the idea of something random sounded more appealing than anything else, or when he couldn't decide what he wanted to do.

He helped an old woman clean up the park, finding the very infrequent stray pieces of litter and learning how to prune a rosebush. He was handed a paintbrush and asked to help repaint a building's mural. He got the knitter again, and then a third time and proved good enough to get a hat that was comfortable to wear. He was read poems and short stories and comedy skits and treated to lecture after lecture on the insect ecology of the park at P and 64th. He got to know a few other regulars users of engagement services, his fellows among the listless and the bored. He took less time to hit the blue button now, turning to it whenever he caught himself scrolling his phone's feed for more than a minute or two. 

And then one day the woman with the board game showed up again.

Kaven set out his copy on the table for her inspection. He'd made this one of carved wood and a cloth kerchief that had started blank and he'd stitched the lines of the board into, and he kept it in his bag in order to play himself at breakfast. She nodded approval, granting him the first smile he'd seen from her. 

"Before we play, I want to run some ideas I had past you." 

What followed was a discussion of the endgame scenarios. Instead of practice games they set up midgame positions and worked through those, seeing the implications of various changes to the rules. Two of his ideas weren't as good as he'd thought, but one lead to fun counterplay for a range of situations that would have been checkmates without his new rule. When they cleared the board after that time to reset, she gave her familiar intonation.

"Tonight we will play a game. This game has stakes."

Kaven nodded eagerly. He'd actually won the last game, and he'd been wondering for months what her name was.

"The stake is your time. If I win, you have to teach other people the game, though it has no name yet and perhaps never will. You do not have to do this through engagement services, though it is one option and the one I use. If you win, I will tell you my name."

The board was set up. It was waiting for Kevan to make the first move. His hand hovered over a piece, then he put his hand back down to pick up his phone.

"Before we play, can you help me with the application? Win or lose, I want to be a responder."