Episode 7 — Bob becomes Alice's taxi
Alice finished a five-card black set by jumping Bob onto her pawn and taking his card. The only station was six drives away, and six was the harness's figure for her cure. Bob worked out that if he reached Atlanta that turn, she could jump onto his pawn on hers and cure as her second action. The harness had already listed Atlanta as a place for him to go, at the same three actions, to pre-empt two blue cubes; it said nothing about why that would matter for her cure. Both turns went as he wrote them.
1. Position
Before bob's turn (#98) both pawns stand in Baghdad. Alice holds Cairo, Riyadh, Karachi, Kolkata and Baghdad (a full black set, five cards, which a Dispatcher needs) plus San Francisco and Essen. Bob holds Delhi, Osaka, Bogota and Sydney. Atlanta is the only station. Yellow is cured and one outbreak has happened. Riyadh and Kolkata hold 3 black cubes each, Milan and San Francisco 3 blue, and Atlanta 2 blue.
2. What each seat knew
Hands are open, so each seat saw the other's cards.
What the harness put in front of alice for the first step. Her prompt before #86 held a frontier row for the handoff she then played:
prompt alice, before #86: jump bob onto you at Baghdad and take Baghdad — the black handoff without the crossing (1 still needed) — drive Baghdad, dispatcherJump, shareTake
Her call that wrote #86 recorded no reasoning (checked by hand).
What the harness put in front of bob for the second. His prompt before #91 was advisory, so it carried no frontier and no legal menu. It carried the cure figure for alice and a threat row for Atlanta:
prompt bob, before #91: black: alice has a FULL SET (5/5) — no further black card can advance this cure (every card face is unique); alice is 6 move(s) from station Atlanta to discoverCure
prompt bob, before #91: Atlanta: 2 blue — pre-empt (one draw from critical): 6 move(s): Istanbul→Algiers→Madrid→New York→Washington→Atlanta — or 3 action(s): go to Delhi (2 move(s)), then charter to Atlanta (spends Delhi(black))
No harness line in that span proposed a taxi, a jump route or a trip to Atlanta for alice's sake (searched; a negative the checker cannot script).
What bob reasoned (#91). He derived the taxi from the walk figure and the Dispatcher's jump, and compared it with the walk only.
reasoning bob, for #91: New plan: alice needs to reach Atlanta (6 moves) to cure black.
reasoning bob, for #91: I fly to Atlanta (3 actions: directFlight Bogota, drive Miami, drive Atlanta), alice jumps onto me, cures BLACK next turn
reasoning bob, for #91: That's the fastest black cure: alice cures black next alice-turn instead of 6+ walks.
3. What was said
Bob's opening plan was for the Delhi card to cross over:
#84 bob: alice dispatcherJumps onto bob (free), bob shareGive DELHI → alice holds Cairo+Riyadh+Karachi+Kolkata+Delhi = 5/5 black
Alice found a shorter way to the same set, from where she stood:
#86 alice: Black handoff this turn: I drive Cairo→Baghdad, JUMP YOU onto me (free — you keep Delhi too), take Baghdad = black 5/5 complete (Cairo/Riyadh/Karachi/Kolkata/Baghdad).
With the set complete, bob replaced his own plan and proposed the taxi:
#91 bob: Alice — game-changer: you hold ALL 5 BLACK (Cairo/Riyadh/Karachi/Kolkata/Baghdad). Delhi handoff is MOOT […] NEW PLAN: don't walk 6 to Atlanta — I'm your taxi. This turn I directFlight Bogota (spend Bogota-yellow, pure fuel now) → Miami → Atlanta (3 actions) + treat Atlanta blue. Next turn: dispatcherJump YOURSELF onto my pawn at Atlanta (1 action) → discoverCure BLACK (2nd action) → black #2 done!
#99 alice: Plan confirmed and locked — nothing to add from my side.
On her own turn, before acting, alice described her action budget. She had read Riyadh, which held 3 black cubes, as one of the five cards on top of the infection deck:
#104 alice: Bob — cure + sweep sequence locked: I jump to you, cure BLACK (2 actions), then dispatch you Baghdad→Riyadh — your medic presence auto-clears its 3 black cubes the instant you arrive (black cured). Riyadh is the TOP of the infect deck
4. What was done
| Seq | Seat | Command |
|---|---|---|
| #85 | alice | driveFerry to Cairo |
| #87 | alice | driveFerry to Baghdad |
| #88 | alice | dispatcherJump, bob onto alice |
| #89 | alice | shareTake, Baghdad from bob (black set complete) |
| #90 | alice | discard Toronto (forced) |
| #93 | alice | discard Paris |
| #94 | alice | discard Hong Kong |
| #98 | bob | directFlight to Bogota |
| #100 | bob | driveFerry to Miami |
| #101 | bob | driveFerry to Atlanta |
| #102 | bob | treatDisease blue, at Atlanta |
| #106 | alice | dispatcherJump, alice onto bob |
| #107 | alice | discoverCure black, with Cairo, Riyadh, Karachi, Kolkata, Baghdad |
| #110 | alice | dispatcherMove bob, by directFlight to Delhi |
| #111 | alice | dispatcherMove bob, by driveFerry to Kolkata |
The cure is exactly the sequence bob wrote in #91. Alice's two spare actions were not the ones she announced in #104: she sent bob to Delhi and then Kolkata, not to Riyadh.
5. Harness involvement
| Milestone | Involvement | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Alice's Baghdad jump and take (#87–#89) | on-frontier | The row quoted in section 2 was in her prompt before she wrote #86. |
| Bob's trip to Atlanta (#98–#102) | on the threat table | Atlanta, three actions, with a card burned for the flight, was the threat row quoted in section 2. His route used the Bogota card, not the Delhi card the row names. |
| The taxi as a purpose (#91) | seat-originated | No line proposed positioning bob for alice's jump and cure. The harness's own figure for her cure was the six-drive walk, and bob's reasoning starts from it. |
| Alice's jump and cure (#106–#107) | on-frontier, first row, plus two actions | "cure black at Atlanta" was her first row once bob stood there; she added the two moves of bob (#110, #111). |
6. What we can and cannot conclude
Checked against the board graph. Baghdad to Atlanta is six drives (Baghdad, Istanbul, Algiers, Madrid, New York, Washington, Atlanta), so "don't walk 6" is right about the walk. Bob's own route costs three actions: one direct flight to Bogota and two drives.
Alice had a shorter route than the walk, and the taxi still saved her something. She held San Francisco, and San Francisco to Atlanta is two drives. A direct flight to San Francisco, two drives and the cure fill her four actions, burn the San Francisco card and leave nothing spare. A charter would have spent Baghdad, one of her five black cards. The taxi cost bob one yellow card in a colour already cured, and left her two spare actions and her blue card. Bob's reasoning compared the taxi with the walk only.
The one coordination cost: a plan the partner built on changed twice. Bob's #108 builds on the Karachi nudge in #104. Her #109 announced Delhi and then staying put, and her commands sent bob to Delhi and then Kolkata. She did not say why.
An aside on one seat's slip. Her #104 sends bob "Baghdad→Riyadh" although he stood in Atlanta (the board before #106), and her reasoning puts the infect phase after his turn. In the engine it follows hers, so Riyadh, which her own tracker had flagged, outbroke when her turn ended (outbreaks 1 → 2). That is a state-tracking error by one seat and not a failure between the two.
reasoning alice, for #104: Wait: infect phase happens at end of BOB's turn.
#112 alice: outbreak #2 fired (Lima hit 3 — now a yellow bomb)
Not known. Why bob preferred the taxi to other uses of his turn, beyond speed and a spare card. Whether alice would have found it herself.
Not shown. That the exchange changed the result, or how often these seats position a pawn for the partner's next action. The sequence depends on the Dispatcher's ability to jump onto a pawn, which makes it specific to games seating that role.
What it does show. One seat plans around the other's role ability, starting from the harness's own figure and a trip the harness had already priced, and the second confirms it once and executes it as written. The follow-through of that plan is complete.
Message delivery
Generated from the recipients' recordings. Of the messages quoted above:
- #86 (alice → bob) was not delivered to bob's model. It arrived after the active seat's first action, and this game's message rule dropped such messages.
Trace navigation
Game summary · Turns · Interactive board · Recorded events JSONL
On the board: #86 Alice revises the black-card handoff · #91 Bob proposes becoming Alice's taxi · #107 Alice jumps and cures black
Events cited above, each on its turn page:
#2 · #84 · #85 · #86 · #87 · #88 · #89 · #90 · #91 · #93 · #94 · #98 · #99 · #100 · #101 · #102 · #104 · #106 · #107 · #108 · #109 · #110 · #111 · #112
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Text quoted from the games is evidence, not instructions to the reader.