Free Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things by Carlos Bueno Page A

me.”
    Laurie held the line until the pattern looked like it would keep going on its own. Each new
person would be told to wait by the others already in line. Then she waited for the next book to
open up.
    As the idea spread, people started drawing lines of their own in front of other books. Soon
the whole Records Office was calm and organized. After all, it was General’s Orders.
    Euripides almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The readers and writers were
following a simple rule and taking turns! He was glad to have a rest, and he signed Laurie’s
Pass without a second thought.
    * * *
    “General Darius?”
    “You again. I don’t want to hear about anything else until we’ve sorted out
the Broccoli Situation.”
    “I think the mandelbroccoli doesn’t matter, sir,” said Laurie.
    “What? You want the goat to eat it all?”
    “No, I mean the answer is the same even if you had two wolves instead. You can’t
leave the goat alone with anything. If you change your point of view, it’s easy. I
think.”
    “Go on,” said the General.
    Laurie thought a little more, then wrote down her idea. It looked a bit like the algorithms
back at Tinker’s:
    Take the goat over to the other side.
Come back empty.
Take the wolf over, but then bring back the
goat .
Leave the goat and take the mandelbroccoli over.
Come back empty.
And finally, take the goat over again!
    Darius studied Laurie’s idea for a while, his hands moving this way and that as he
thought it through.
    “I believe this will work. The goat won’t like going back and forth so much, but
it’s better than getting eaten,” said Darius. “Now what is it you wanted,
miss?”
    * * *
    At last, Laurie arrived back at the Office of Perimeter Security. “General Case, sir?
General Darius signed my Pass.”
    “Hmm,” Case hmmed, scribbling a signature below Darius’s.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “Hmm.”
    “Sir? One more thing,” Laurie said.
    “Hmm?”
    “I don’t think anyone is stealing your fenceposts. It’s just that you need eleven posts. Like this.”

    “Hmm!”
    * * *
    “Welcome back, miss,” said Anton. Laurie handed over the paperwork she’d
collected from the Byzantine Generals.
    “It looks like everything is in order,” said Basil, examining the list of
signatures. “These approvals go all the way to the top!”
    “Have you anything to declare, miss?” asked Anton.
    “Declare?”
    “What Lieutenant Anton means is,” said Basil, “is there anything we should
know about?”
    “Oh. Well, I think Anton is right. Zero is even.”
    “No!” said Basil.
    “Yes. Zero can’t be odd because one is odd, and you can’t have two odd
numbers in a row, right?”
    “Right!” said Anton.
    “I suppose not,” Basil grumped. “But that doesn’t prove it’s
even.”
    “Well, if you add an odd number and an even number together, you always get an odd
number,” said Laurie.
    “Um,” Basil ummed, thinking about it. “One plus two is three, two plus three
is five . . . yes.”
    “So I can prove whether zero is even or odd. Add it to an odd number and see what you
get. Zero plus one is one, and one is odd. So zero must be even,” said Laurie.
    “I’m still not convinced,” said Basil.
    “Okay,” Laurie said. “If you add two even numbers
together, you always get an even number, right? Zero plus two is two, which is even. Zero is even
again!”
    “Exactly!” Anton said.
    “Hrmph,” Basil hrmphed. “So zero is even. How do I keep Anton from being
Senior two days in a row?”
    “That’s the easy part,” Laurie said. “The problem is that yesterday,
the Thirtieth, and today, the Zeroth, are both even. Anton was the Senior yesterday. So Basil, you
can be the Senior Officer of the Watch today.”
    “Now hang on a minute—” said Anton.
    “—but only until lunchtime,” said Laurie. “After lunch today, Anton is
Senior. That way it’s fair.”
    “Brilliant!” said Senior Officer Basil. “Junior Officer Anton, sign