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As it turned out, his opponent didn't bother to ask if he could play. He didn't even bother announcing himself. A few moments later a person sat down across from Johnny before he could look up -- but when he did he found himself staring down a boy about his own age.

The other boy wasn't one of the old men who usually frequented chess tables in the spring or summer with their timers and their how-do-you-dos. He had on what looked to be a black bomber jacket, unzipped, and a -- beret? -- cocked to one side on his head. Under the jacket was a red t-shirt that displayed the slogan in white block letters, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. It was a British WWII propaganda slogan from the days of we will fight them on the beaches, British mettle in the face of the inexorable Axis march onward. It made for a pretty distinctive shirt, too.

Its wearer was blonde, purple-eyed, and stared at Johnny like he was starving and Johnny was a huge cheesecake. He then stared at the chess pieces like he was starving and they were a huge cheesecake.

"You know, in a given game of chess, the likelihood that one of the players will move any piece but the center two pawns on either side in the first two moves is incredibly slim." His voice, however, was low and scratchy and incredibly un-urgent-sounding. He took his time with words. "Do you know why that is? Is it that sure of an opening? Is the way we play chess unfailingly structured around games that begin that way," he picked up one of the black pawns, "and it would be hard to teach it any other way?"

He moved it in the motion described, two squares forward. "More importantly," he raised his eyebrows at Johnny, though he was smiling, "what fool do you expect to come play with you if you set yourself up with white? Present company excepted."

In the ensuing pause he squinted at the pieces as if he was contemplating them a bit heavily. "Dylan Rasmussen," he said.

"Not for another year," said Dylan, moving another pawn as well, "and till then I'm enjoying my time on the outside. Ah, I lie. I go to Hillworth. Anything else is 'the outside.' Nah, I'm a junior -- then a year back to Meadowview, in case I'd gotten sick of getting to wear pants. Then probably Silent Hill. Why, is that where you go?"

It was a little odd to see a Hillworth student sit down at a chess table. Hillworth students were better known for knocking them over and beating up the kinds of nerds who played at them. But it was a little odd to see a Hillworth student wearing a KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON t-shirt in the first place, and it was generally an odd situation altogether. Dylan Rasmussen was smiling, though. He had a slightly hungry edge to his smile right now, but that probably wasn't his fault, any more than his raspy Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds voice was -- he looked kind of like he hadn't slept or eaten in a while, actually. Kind of. Not quite. It was something else hard to put one's finger on.

"Anyway, alea iacta est," he said, leaning on one elbow and raising a conspiratorial eyebrow at Johnny. "It's all right. I'm used to playing black."

Dylan's hands were long-fingered and spidery, not at all the hands of a boy who broke car windows and vandalized brick walls. He tapped them idly on the table. His fingernails were chewed down to raw stubs.

"A little young for blackmail," he said, "and a little sane for arson, don't you think?" His eyes had drifted up to Johnny's face: his features, his hair, like he was memorizing him eidetically. Curiouser and curiouser. He tilted his head minutely to one side and his gaze drifted in that direction in thought. "Most of us ne'er-do-wells are sent to Hillworth for misdemeanors. Repeated misdemeanors. It's not the crime that makes the Hillworth boy, you see," he leaned back a little, "it's the unrepentance. The willingness to re-offend. The difference between, 'but he's a good kid, Your Honor,' and, 'there's nothing to be done about this one.'"

He smiled at him. "But carry on," he said.

Dylan had the capability to stay remarkably still, all but for the tapping of his fingers against the tabletop. Otherwise he sat with his chin in his hand and regarded Johnny, with the occasional glance flicked to the chessboard. The game was young, though. There was little to be inferred about either opponent yet. He reached forward with his free hand and started to absently straighten the row of black pawns so they lined up parallel.

"Assault and repeated disobedience to authority," he said. "Game's afoot, is it?"

His eyes unfocused again like he was tuning the world out to think. He had lavender eyes with the propensity to look faraway, of which he made good use, if the past few minutes were any judge. They were red-rimmed, like he hadn't slept. "You like mysteries," he said. "In particular, you like detectives. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you caught my reference just there."

"Well played, well played indeed!" Dylan cracked a grin and looked decidedly charmed, leaning forward a little to afford himself a better view of both chessboard and opponent. "I can only surmise you gathered that from the fact that I'm still alive and in one piece despite going to a place like Hillworth and having a Hillworth boy for a roommate -- for all you know I'm a fearsome psychopath with five shivs on my person at one time, you know, but I suppose I ruled that out myself with my 'sane' comment -- which is a capable enough deduction that I'll say. Yes, I am friends with my roommate. In a rather Breakfast Club-esque fashion and against all odds," he studied the board and then moved a black bishop, "but rather fortunately for me."

He peered at the board layout the same way he had at Johnny's features a bit earlier. "For my part I guessed you liked mysteries because while lots of people read people," he said, "I've only ever heard of one consulting detective at 221B Baker Street who reads them out loud. And I suppose a few ripoff TV dramas."

His opponent, however he stacked up to Hercule Poirot and Nero Wolfe, seemed engrossed in the contemplation of the white knight and black bishop for a moment or two. He had well-considered thought processes, did Dylan Rasmussen. He was also still and at-ease being still, which precluded nervous habits for the most part: leaving the puzzle of the chewed nails and the raw fingertips. "You're saying there had to be something directly in it for me, rather than pent-up aggression or thrillseeking or some other psychological cause of juvenile delinquency?"

He moved a pawn more or less into the path of Johnny's knight. The pawn was protected, of course; the bishop stood vigilant at its defense several squares diagonally behind it. "I'm not sure whether to be flattered." Dylan looked back up at Johnny. "I fear you ignore the possibility that smart people can do things for stupid reasons."

While Johnny talked Dylan considered the board, picked a black knight up with two fingers, decided against it and left the knight where it was. Then he moved a pawn for clearly one purpose: opening up one of his rooks. The pawn stood far across the board in the threatened range of a white bishop, but it too was protected by the queenside black rook. None of his pieces were zeroing in on the opposing king yet.

"But Hillworth is a notorious hellhole," he pointed out, his chin in his hand again, "and anyone with a brain who's lived in the area more than a couple years knows that much. What end could possibly be worth a repeat offense that landed me in there? It would have to be something that overrode my long-term judgment, suggesting a rash and impulsive personality," he smiled to himself, "a nature fixed on instant gratification, or something else entirely. Do you like puzzles?"