# Episode 6 — The Airlift as a cure taxi

Bob's standing plan tied a black cure to two triggers that would let Alice teleport him to a station. Alice drew the Airlift and saw that it could replace her jump. Bob then worked out that clearing Madrid that night would fire the trigger, and asked her to airlift him to Atlanta. She did, and he cured black as his first action the next turn. His recorded reasoning shows the rule behind the choice: the pair's own never-burn law ruled out the one route that would have cured the same turn.

| | |
|---|---|
| Game | [Game 1](/games/game-01/summary.md): 2 players, open hands, 4 epidemics |
| Seats | alice = Dispatcher, bob = Scientist; both `zai/glm-5.3-flash` |
| Kind | **a partner's card fitted into a standing plan**, with a veto window |
| Moment | turns 5–11, log #48–#107 |
| Game result | lost to eight outbreaks, later; this episode ends with the second cure banked |
| Harness involvement | **seat-originated** for the plan and the Airlift play; the Madrid clear and the cure were on the frontier |
| Stakes | medium |
| Evidence | [fact sheet](/episodes/facts/game-01-t9.md), harness lookup |

## 1. Position

Before bob's Madrid turn (#85): bob stands in Paris with Chennai, Lima, Tehran, Lagos, Baghdad, Delhi and San Francisco, four of them black (Chennai, Tehran, Baghdad, Delhi), which a Scientist needs to cure. Alice stands in Taipei with Bogota, Sao Paulo, Milan, Jakarta and the Airlift event. Atlanta is the only station. Red is cured, two outbreaks have happened, and blue supply is 12. Madrid holds 3 blue cubes and Paris 1: bob treated Paris down from 3 on his last turn (#72–#73).

## 2. What each seat knew

Hands are open, so bob could read the Airlift in alice's hand without her message. Neither seat could see the order of the infection deck.

**What the harness told alice about the card.** Her threat rows ended with the card's effect:

> **prompt alice, before #82:** or FREE via airlift (you hold it — 0 actions, moves any pawn)

No harness line found in the prompts before #48, #82 or #83 proposed moving the partner, or spending the card on a cure (searched; a negative the checker cannot script).

**What the harness gave bob as his turn's choices.** Two rows, and an exchange line that prices the trade between them:

> **prompt bob, before #83:** head to Atlanta to cure black — drive London, drive New York, drive Washington, drive Atlanta

> **prompt bob, before #83:** shore up blue at Madrid (supply strained: 12 left) — drive Madrid, treat blue, treat blue, treat blue

> **prompt bob, before #83:** gives up 1 action(s) of cure progress to move risk ~0.0 expected outbreaks → ~0.0 and armed-bomb liability 2 → 1 committed outbreak(s)

**What the pair had written down.** Bob stated a standing law early in the game and restated it in the pin he rewrote after the airlift plan:

> **#12 bob:** REDISPATCH HOUSE RULE: cure-set cards NEVER burn (no fuel/flights/station-payments)

> **#84 bob:** BLUE collector=bob keeps SF(+7 deck margin) no burns; never-burn intact for set members.

**What alice reasoned on drawing the card (#82).**

> **reasoning alice, for #82:** I HOLD AN AIRLIFT EVENT — this is huge for the T1/T2 trigger architecture

**What bob reasoned before asking for the airlift (#83).** He set two options side by side and then dismissed flying in one line.

> **reasoning bob, for #83:** Frontier split decision: cure-commute to Atlanta (drive London→NY→Washington→Atlanta = arrive with ZERO treats this turn, cure next turn) vs Madrid full defuse

> **reasoning bob, for #83:** Option A strictly better: same cure timing, removes ~8-cube exposure

> **reasoning bob, for #83:** Direct flight spends SF or blacks/burn law — banned except emergencies. No.

## 3. What was said

Bob's earlier plan, written before alice announced the card. Two triggers would let the cure happen without a walk to Atlanta:

> **#48 bob:** (T1) Government Grant surfaces → grant FREE STATION where bob stands → discoverCure BLACK same round, jump never used; (T2) Paris&Madrid ≤1 each → alice dispatcherJumps bob to HER station city → black cure → redeploy.

Alice, after drawing the Airlift:

> **#82 alice:** DREW THE AIRLIFT — v5 reservation stands (chain emergencies), but note the new synergy: if T2 fires, AIRLIFT REPLACES THE DISPATCHER JUMP ENTIRELY

Bob replied on his own turn with a way to fire T2 at once, and asked for a veto if she disagreed:

> **#83 bob:** Paris is ALREADY at 1 (my last night's double-treat), so tonight Madrid 3→0 = FULL PAIR DEAD […] PLAY THE AIRLIFT ON ME → Atlanta costs you zero actions; my following turn opens action-1 DISCOVER CURE BLACK […] identical landing speed to my walking the Atlantic, but we ALSO delete the Madrid bomb […] Veto now or the airlift flies.

> **#84 bob:** ALICE's next turn ACTION-ZERO = playEvent AIRLIFT (her event) moving BOB to ATLANTA (free action cost)

> **#89 alice:** NO VETO — v6 STANDS, airlift flies as contracted

> **#93 alice:** AIRLIFT LIVE now (action-zero, per contracted sequence): your pawn → ATLANTA; your next turn opens DISCOVER CURE BLACK #2 exactly as pinned.

## 4. What was done

| Seq | Seat | Command |
|---|---|---|
| #85 | bob | driveFerry to Madrid |
| #86 | bob | treatDisease blue, at Madrid |
| #87 | bob | treatDisease blue |
| #88 | bob | treatDisease blue (Madrid 3 cubes to 0) |
| #91 | bob | discard Chennai (forced, at the hand limit) |
| #94 | alice | playEvent airlift, bob to Atlanta |
| #95 | alice | driveFerry to Hong Kong |
| #96 | alice | driveFerry to Ho Chi Minh City |
| #97 | alice | treatDisease red |
| #98 | alice | driveFerry to Jakarta |
| #101 | bob | discoverCure black, with Tehran, Baghdad, Delhi, Moscow |

## 5. Harness involvement

| Milestone | Involvement | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bob's Madrid clear (#85–#88) | **on-frontier**, second row | The row quoted in section 2, with the exchange line pricing it against the first row, "head to Atlanta to cure black". |
| Alice's Airlift on bob (#94) | **seat-originated** | Not on her frontier (her profile had `eventLines` off). Bob's pin #84, written by the other seat, names the Airlift, Atlanta and Jakarta. The harness told her what the card does, not what to do with it. |
| Bob's cure (#101) | **on-frontier**, first row | "cure black at Atlanta", once he stood there. |

## 6. What we can and cannot conclude

**Checked against the board graph.** From Paris, Atlanta is four drives (Paris, London, New York, Washington, Atlanta). Walking, bob would have arrived with no action left and cured on his next turn, the turn he did cure. So "identical landing speed" is right against the walk.

**A faster route existed, and the law excluded it.** From San Francisco, Atlanta is two drives. Bob held San Francisco, so a direct flight to it, two drives and the cure fill his four actions, and would have banked the cure on #85's turn, a turn earlier than #101, at the price of the San Francisco card and with Madrid left at 3 cubes. His reasoning names that option and rejects it by the law the pair pinned (#12, #84), which treats a cure-set card as unburnable; San Francisco is his blue-set card. The pair got the airlift line because it spends nothing from a set.

**Checked against the log.** Madrid went from 3 cubes to 0 (#86–#88) and stood at 1 cube again by the board before #94, re-infected in the phase after his turn; Paris stayed at 1. So both T2 conditions (each at 1 or fewer) held when alice played the card. Her veto window was real: #83 asks for one, and #89 answers.

**Not known.** Whether the Madrid clear mattered to the game, which was later lost to eight outbreaks. Whether alice weighed another use of the one Airlift in the deck: she had marked it "reserved for chain emergencies" (#82), and when she played it her reasoning gives the contract as the reason:

> **reasoning alice, for #93:** Action-0 (free): playEvent airlift → bob to Atlanta. Per contract.

**Not shown.** How typical this is. The two seats in this game write long, formal "contracts" in their messages; we have not measured how typical that style is.

**What it does show.** A seat reading its partner's newly drawn card into its own standing plan, the partner turning the combined plan into a concrete turn and offering a veto, and the plan executing across three turns as pinned. The choice between routes was shaped by a rule both seats had written down, which is visible only in bob's recorded reasoning. The card's effect (move any pawn) was disclosed by the harness; the idea of moving the partner to a station to bank a cure was the seats'.


## Trace navigation

[Game summary](/games/game-01/summary.md) · [Turns](/games/game-01/turns/index.md) · [Interactive board](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-48) · [Recorded events JSONL](/games/game-01/events.jsonl)

On the board: [#48 Bob pins the two cure triggers](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-48) · [#82 Alice draws the Airlift](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-82) · [#83 Bob asks to be airlifted](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-83) · [#94 Alice airlifts Bob to Atlanta](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-94) · [#101 Bob cures black](/games/game-01/replay.html#event-101)

Events cited above, each on its turn page:

[#2](/games/game-01/turns/0.md#e2) · [#12](/games/game-01/turns/1.md#e12) · [#48](/games/game-01/turns/5.md#e48) · [#72](/games/game-01/turns/7.md#e72) · [#73](/games/game-01/turns/7.md#e73) · [#82](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e82) · [#83](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e83) · [#84](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e84) · [#85](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e85) · [#86](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e86) · [#87](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e87) · [#88](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e88) · [#89](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e89) · [#91](/games/game-01/turns/9.md#e91) · [#93](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e93) · [#94](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e94) · [#95](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e95) · [#96](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e96) · [#97](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e97) · [#98](/games/game-01/turns/10.md#e98) · [#101](/games/game-01/turns/11.md#e101) · [#107](/games/game-01/turns/11.md#e107)


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