Random prompt: Julian is sick of losing to Garak at kotra, so he proposes they play Mastermind instead. He knows the algorithm that can solve the pattern in five moves or less, so there's no way he could possibly lose 😉
Garak turned the pegs over in his hand.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
Julian spread out the board and checked his code.
“It’s all there. You just need to guess the order of the pegs.”
“That’s all?” Garak asked, “it seems so simple. Is this a child’s game?”
Julian’s lips thinned. How like Garak to assume any game without complex rules would be easy.
I mean, true enough. Mastermind was a children’s game. He’d loved it as a kid, until his treatments took all the challenge out of it.
But all games were games of strategy and Julian’s memory and enhanced reasoning would make winning this one an easy bet.
Julian sighed and gestured for Garak to start.
“Go ahead. Best two out of three.”
A few minutes later, Garak cracked the first code. Sooner than Julian predicted, but it hardly mattered. He has an algorithm that can crack any code in less than five moves.
Julian placed his pegs carefully, and just as swiftly, Garak provided feedback to him about location and color. In 3 moves, he was certain he knew the pattern.
He placed the winning combination on the next row with a proud smile.
Garak put two white pegs and two colored pegs on the right-hand side.
Wait, what? That wasn’t right. He was sure he had the correct code. He tried again, puzzled, and Garak removed one of the colored pegs This guess was worse than the first.
Suspicious, Julian demanded to see the code Garak chose. Maybe he just didn’t know how to play correctly. Garak was reluctant to stop game play, muttering about cheating and proper gaming etiquette, but he eventually acquiesced.
Julian looked at his code in disbelief. It was indeed wrong. There was no way Garak provided him accurate feedback. Looking at the previous turns, he realized he’d misread the pegs on the second line.
How? He had a perfect memory. He knew that wasn’t what was there the first time.
Garak looked at him blandly, saying, “can we continue now?”
Julian thought about refusing, but he looked foolish enough already.
Embarrassed at his outburst, he motioned for Garak to compose a new pattern.
It took Julian 8 or 9 turns to find the correct pattern; far more than the 6 it had taken Garak at the start of the game. Again, it seemed like he’d incorrectly remembered the initial feedback.
How was that possible?
“Garak,” he asked suspiciously, “I feel like I’m losing my mind. It seems like the pegs are moving halfway through the game. They’re not actually moving, are they?”
Garak tried his hardest to look innocent, and then Julian remembered.
He’d loaned Garak his book of terran magic tricks the other week. Another treasured memory from his early childhood. He was pretty sure there was some sleight of hand that Garak would take to very easily.
He sighed and said sarcastically, “Well, now that we know you won’t let me win at any game, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to at least pull a rabbit out of my hat?“
Garak smiled winningly.
“That, my dear doctor, I can do.”
And he did.