Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things (9 page)

Euripides was up to his ears with problems. Everyone wanted to do everything at once. Maybe
she should start there . . .

* * *

A half-hour later, Laurie was back in the Office of Records. She didn’t shout, or shove,
or cut in front of anyone. She waited. Eventually one of the books became completely free. Laurie
walked over to it and drew a line on the floor.

A woman came over to write in the book. Laurie stepped aside and let her work. A few moments
later, a man came up to read from the book.

“New policy, sir,” said Laurie. “You have to stand on the line until the
first customer is finished.”

“But I have to look up something on page 1728!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “General’s Orders. But you’re
next.”

“Oh. All right, then.” The man stood carefully on the line. Another person came to
read from page 1024.

“General’s Orders,” said 1728, pointing to the line. “Don’t
worry. You’re right after 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:

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 this
young lady’s Pass!”

Approved, approved, approved, signed, and countersigned. Laurie was finally through the
turnstile.

“I’m glad that’s over,” said Xor. “Now, where the heck is that
Byzantine Process?”

SECOND
, the package’s directions read,
DELIVER TO BRUTO
FUERZA, LOOKOUT HILL LIGHTHOUSE
. Laurie and Xor couldn’t see any lighthouse, but
there was a cloud of dust rising from the hill.

“You work for Winsome, eh? Right on time,” said Bruto when they arrived.
“I’m sorry to say we’re behind schedule. Our lighthouse isn’t finished.
We’ve been working double-time, day and night.”

“Are you going to put the lighthouse on top of that castle?” Laurie asked.

“Castle?” asked Bruto. “That
is
the
lighthouse.”

Dozens of Green-Shelled Round machines were busy all around the enormous structure. They
looked just like Tinker’s turtle, but they were the size of a large truck. Instead of drawing
dots on paper, these turtles were laying bricks on top of bricks, making WALLs, STAIRs, and WINDOWs
right before Laurie’s eyes.

“What are all those things coming out from the wall?” she asked, pointing to a
forest of supports and buttresses on one side of the tower.

“We’ve had no end of problems,” said Bruto, shaking his head and spitting.
“The south wall was falling outward. So we had to shore it up. Then it started falling
inward
.”

“Is that why you’re behind schedule?” she asked. There was something about
the scene that bothered Laurie, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It looked . . .
messy.

“Things are always going wrong,” Bruto said. “Big ideas come with big risks.
But we can fix any problem with more power and hard work!”

“You certainly have a lot of both,” Laurie said, with just a teensy tiny bit of
envy. The things she could do with all those turtles! “How do you teach the turtles to build a
tower?”

“Here, let me show you.” Bruto led her to a tent nearby. A small army of people
was working around a table. “First we write the plans on paper.”

“That part makes a LINE of bricks. We stack a bunch of BRICK-LINES on top of each other,
and that’s how a wall gets built. To make the wall thicker, we just add more
commands.”

“Wow, it just goes on and on and on,” said Laurie, flipping through the pages.
“It must have taken forever to write all of this.”

“Big buildings need big plans. Big plans need big teams. It’s only logical,”
Bruto said. “Writing the plans wasn’t the worst part, though. We’re running out of
bricks!”

“Really? But why?”

“The first version wasn’t strong enough, and it fell down. So now I’m making
a tower twice as big, twice as thick, and twice as tall. Two times two times two is
eight.”

“So it needs eight times as many bricks?” Laurie asked.

“It’s just a matter of supplies.”

“How do you know this version of the plan will work?”

“We’re not a bunch of amateurs, girlie. We do extensive testing of our
algorithms,” Bruto said. “Take a look at this!” Off to the side was a table
covered with tiny turtles and tiny bricks.

“Hey, they’re building a tower, too!” Laurie exclaimed. Sure enough, the
turtles were following the same plan as their bigger cousins.

“We test new plans by building a scale model,” Bruto explained.

“But, Bruto, the model doesn’t have the same extra stuff keeping the walls from
falling down.”

“Some problems only show up in the full size. When that happens, we have to
adapt.”

“Oh,” Laurie said. “But if the model is not the same as the real thing, how
can you be sure that—”

They turned around just in time to see the full-size tower collapse into a big pile of bricks.
Bruto stood still for a long time, watching the dust settle as the turtles got to work cleaning up
the mess.

“Are you going to make it even bigger now?” Laurie asked.

“No. What we need . . . what we need . . . is a radical change of plan! All right,
everyone,” Bruto said to no one in particular. “Clear the decks! Empty your minds!
Brainstorm! I want new ideas!”

“
Let’s make the walls four times as thick, but the tower only three
times as high
,” said one worker.

“
More supports inside and out!
” shouted another.

“
Use bigger bricks!
”

“
Make bricks out of steel!
”

“
Steel is too expensive. How about iron?
”

“
Are you crazy? Iron will rust!
”

“
I told you we should have used a triangle.
”

“
Make the outside steel, but the inside brick.
”

“Good! This is good! Keep them coming. We’re thinking outside the box. Anyone
else?” Bruto asked.

“Why not a circle, like the lighthouse on Abstract Island?” Laurie suggested. She
thought about it for a minute, then wrote out a pair of little poems.

“See? You make a circle of bricks, then put a circle on top of that, all the way to the
top!” Laurie explained.

“Ha ha ha, cute idea, girlie! But that can’t possibly work,” Bruto
replied.

“Why not?” Laurie asked.

“It’s too small!” Bruto said. “How do you expect to make a great big
tower out of a teeny little plan like this?”

“I don’t know,” Laurie said. It seemed sensible to her, but maybe they knew
something she didn’t. They were professionals, after all. “I . . . I think it will
work.”

“Hmph,” Bruto hmphed. “Even if it were big enough, it has a major
flaw.”

“What flaw?”

“Our first plan was a hollow square, and it fell down,” Bruto said. “The
second plan was a hollow square, twice as big, and it also fell down. Your plan is a hollow
circle.”

“I don’t understand. Shouldn’t a circle be stronger?”

“Obviously, the problem isn’t shape or size—the problem is that they are
hollow inside
!” said Bruto. “We need to fill up the insides with
brick, too. It’s only logical.”

“
You’re right, Bruto!
” said one worker.

“
That’s why you’re the boss
,” said
another.

“But I’ve seen hollow towers,” said Laurie. “They’ve been built
before.”

“How do you know they won’t fall down eventually? The evidence is very
clear,” said Bruto.

“
Yes, very clear
,” the other workers agreed, nodding to each
other.

“But I—”

“No, I’ve made up my mind,” Bruto said. “The tower must be solid. In
fact,” he said, looking at the pile, “we’re going to build a
pyramid.”

“A pyramid?!”

“A pyramid can’t fall down. It’s already fallen down,” explained
Bruto. “It’s one of the perfect solids!”

“
Yes, that’s right!
” agreed one worker.

“
Genius!
”

“
It’s just a matter of more work and more
materials.
”

“Okay! We have a plan,” said Bruto. “Everyone, let’s get to work! Send
Winsome my apologies, girlie, and tell her that we need more time to get it right.”

Some people can’t be argued with. As Laurie and Xor set out for the
Doppelganger
, Bruto and his team were busy writing out the instructions for his
PYRAMID, brick by brick by brick.