17

The group gathers around the console, its screen flickering faintly as the last puzzle fades away. David Snowell’s face is tense. "These distortions aren’t just random echoes anymore. They’re becoming more specific. They’re targeting us."

Magnus steps forward, pointing to the console where a faint timeline diagram appears. "Look here. The fragments—these distortions—are clustering around moments where the TSC was operating at maximum capacity. It’s like the black hole’s ergosphere is pulling events from the timeline and projecting them into our reality."

Wesley frowns. "You’re saying the TSC is dragging pieces of time into the present? How is that even possible?"

David turns, his expression grim. "The black hole at the TSC’s core isn’t just slowing time anymore. Its ergosphere—the warped region around the event horizon—is destabilized. Normally, it contains and regulates the factory’s dilation effects, giving us the decades we need to prepare for Christmas. But now… it’s leaking."

Santa’s eyes narrow. "Leaking into where?"

David gestures at the distorted images on the console. "Here. Into us. The distortions are fragments of past and future moments being pulled into the present. Grinchuk’s tampering is amplifying this effect, destabilizing spacetime itself."

Magnus leans back, his expression dark. "And if we can’t stop it?"

David pauses. "Eventually, the factory’s time dilation could collapse entirely. If that happens, the black hole will draw the entire timeline into its ergosphere. It could erase Christmas across all history."

Before the group can respond, another alert flashes on the console. Coordinates appear on the screen. David's eyes widen. "These lead to the old North Pole Research Station! It’s where the TSC prototypes were first built. If Grinchuk’s there, he might have access to the early designs."

The group gathers their gear and sets out into the icy wilderness. The snow grows heavier, the winds howling around them. As they approach the coordinates, Wesley halts suddenly, pointing to a faint glimmer in the distance. "What’s that?"

Magnus peers through the snow. "It looks like a chessboard?"

The group moves closer, and the outline becomes clear. A giant chessboard, all pieces buried in snow, stretches before them. The pieces are scattered across it, all coated in white, their original colors obscured by frost and ice.

David crouches beside one of the pieces. "This game is over, so a checkmate has happened, but it’s impossible to tell which side each piece belongs to."

One of the kings is checkmated. Colour in the pieces, working out which are black and which are white. Give the coordinates for the white pieces, then a comma, and then the last move that was played that resulted in the position shown.

Example format: c1 e5 f7, Qf7#.