259 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
259 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
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"THE ADVENTURES OF LONE WOLF SCIENTIFIC"
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"The Adventures of Lone Wolf Scientific" is
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an electronically syndicated series that
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follows the exploits of two madcap
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mavens of high-technology. Copyright 1991
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Michy Peshota. May not be distributed without
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accompany WELCOME.LWS and EPISOD.LWS files.
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EPISODE #9
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The Ghost of Alan Turing
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>>Monkish assembly language wizard Austin Jellowack is
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pestered by an unwelcome pal from a higher programming
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realm.<<
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By M. Peshota
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Austin squirted glue on the back of a pocket mirror.
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He pressed it to the side of the balloon with the fussiness
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of an artist who expects each of his glue blobs to endure
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through eternity. He stood back and caught his breath at
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the beauty unfolding. Who would have guessed that a burnt-
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out Boolean magician like himself, a man who had sacrificed
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the best years of his life and the best parts of his mind to
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chasing algabraic monkeys in and out of dark holes and was
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now a frazzled, bug-eyed wastrel because of it, would find
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personal fulfillment in hot-glueing 59 cent pocket mirros to
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a cardboard model of a doomed dirrigible? He slathered glue
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onto the back of another mirror and affixed it to the
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quivering airship. He leaned back in his perch atop the
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ladder and gazed at his amorphous creation with pride.
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The idea was to make the model of the dirigible--or,
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the <<Hindenburg>> as it was dubbed--more closely resemble
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NASA's space telescope. Why Austin was supposed to do this
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he did not know. Earlier that evening, his new officemate,
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the one with the orange fright wig hair and the big green
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army jacket that jingled like a sack full of hardware, had
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slapped a glue gun in his pale palm, deposited a shopping
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bag full of mirrors in his withered arms, and led him by the
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elbow to the company cafeteria with no explanation given.
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But there were so many things that the often
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disoriented assembly wiz was unsure of these days--including
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his name sometimes, the color of his hair, if he still got a
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paycheck, where he lived, and whether he had a family, and
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if so, where--that not knowing why he was pasting mirrors to
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a big green balloon hardly mattered. All he thought of was
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the sense of accomplishment it gave him. It was unlike
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anything he had experienced before--or at least anything he
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could remember having experienced. Austin slathered glue on
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another pocket mirror and slapped it onto the
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<<Hindenburg>>.
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The plastic and cardboard gourd that was the object of
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his ministrations hovered in a corner of the military
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contractor's cafeteria, anchored to the salad bar by fish
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line. It was the product of a research and development
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department "motivation weekend." Mr. Farwick, their boss in
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the research department, attended many such motivation
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weekends, but one's designed for mid-level engineers-
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managers like himself. At these events, he and and other
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engineer-managers attended peppy lectures with titles like
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"Getting Your Engineers to Think More Clearly through
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Subliminal Suggestion Bumper Stickers" and "How to Talk to
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Employees Who Know How to Build Bombs When You Do Not."
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They also swapped motivation tapes, practiced using their
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cellular phones in rugged terrains like in saunas and
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steakhouse parking lots, compared brands of stress vitamins,
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and, on the very last day, engaged in some sort of middle-
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management bonding ritual in which everyone pooled their
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talents to find their way to the hotel cocktail lounge with
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a compass.
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Mr. Farwick thought it would be good for his research
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engineers to participate in such a motivation weekend.
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Since he didn't want to spend the money to send them to one,
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he planned the motivation weekend himself. On the very last
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day of Mr. Farwick's motivation weekend, following a
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desultory two days of sitting in the damp basement company
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cafeteria, looking at slides of various brands of stress
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vitamins, he assigned his employees the task of designing an
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airship. Just like when they designed large, expensive
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weapons for the Pentagon, they had only a limited budget, a
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short period of time in which to do it, and a limited supply
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of string and paperclips. As everyone worked feverishly,
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the manager paced among the tables, crooning "To Dream the
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Impossible Dream" like a recovered lounge singer suffering a
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psychotic flashback.
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The result was the <<Hindenburg>>. It looked more like
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a lost Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon than a
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warship, although ironically it did not look unlike many
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other aircraft that Dingready & Derringdo Aerospace designed
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for the military. It looked especially like the spy planes.
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The spy planes always cast shadows that looked more like
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those of Mighty Mouse with swollen feet and goiters on each
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side of the neck than of dark predator birds. The
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<<Hindenburg>>'s inner frame was woven of lashed together
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fish stick boxes. Its whale-gray skin was concocted of
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green garbage bags stapled together. On its belly was
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stenciled the assurance "Completely Biodegradable," which
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was a good thing since there was bound to come a day when
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its fish stick box skeleton drooped with structural fatigue
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and the string and helium which held it aloft like the Loch
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Ness monster above the salad bar had second thoughts about
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its purpose in the universal scheme of things, and the whole
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mess came crashing down on top the avocado salad.
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Austin affixed another mirror to the balloon. In
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tiling its flank, he scrupulously worked around the spot
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where everyone liked to reach up and stick their Chiquita
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Banana stickers. He felt that this, more than anything
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else, should be preserved for posterity. He tried to
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remember if the space telescope had any Chiquita Banana
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stickers stuck on it.
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The programmer was nearly finished glueing pocket
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mirrors on the <<Hindenburg>> (amazingly, it <<was>>
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beginning to look a bit like the space telescope), when he
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felt suddenly sad. There were only two mirrors left on the
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bottom of his bag. He hoped the crazy man with the fright
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wig hair had more pocket mirrors for him to glue, if not on
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the <<Hindenburg>>, then maybe on other things in the
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cafeteria like the chocolate milk machine.
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Austin was reloading his glue gun when, from the corner
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of a bloodshot eye, he spotted a glimmer of white. It
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floated through the air in the immediate vacinity of the
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croissant vending machine. Instinctively, the programmer
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leaped from the ladder and dove beneath the salad bar, arms
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and legs trembling as if his very life was in peril. He
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watched worriedly as the white whisp spiralled over the
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grimey cafeteria tables, and twisted among the flourescent
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lights like DNA strands. Gliding closer to the croissant
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machine, it swelled out like a genii, then materialized into
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a tweedy, gossamer man standing in front of the vending
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machines. He fed quarters into the machine, one by one,
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almost defiantly, and grumbled about how old the pastry
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looked. Austen watched the ghost and, barely breathing,
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prayed that he wouldn't spot him.
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Ordinarily, the ghost remained in Austin's office
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closet, reasonably well-behaved. That's where the ghost
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kept his bicycle--an old, wide-handled Schwinn which he had
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pumped to work everyday of his tortured life, counting the
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pedals' revolutions until the chain popped off. Like
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Austin, he too was fascinated by how mathematically
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predictable mechanical catastrophe can be. Occasionally the
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ghost would come out of the closet and pedal around the
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office to illustrate to Austin some subtlety of computer
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memory architecture, or else he'd peer over the programmer's
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shoulder, telling him which POP instructions to NOP and
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which operands to avoid at parties, until Austin became so
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annoyed with the ghost's know-it-all kibbitzing that he'd
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chase him back into the closet, his skinny arms waving like
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a windmill in the air, his thick black glasses bouncing down
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his craggy nose as he charged towards the closet and slammed
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the door shut with battering ram force. Then he'd shout at
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it "Now you stay in there!"
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Sometimes, though, the ghost couldn't be chased back
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into the office closet so easily. If he didn't get his way,
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if Austin didn't follow his advise, he'd stand on the
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programmer's desk, his big wing-tipped shoes stamping
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indignantly on Austin's coded printouts, flinging copies of
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<<Dr. Dobb's>> around the office. Other times, when he got
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lonely, he'd follow the reclusive programmer down the hall
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on his bike, coax him to the cafeteria, and there bend his
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ear for hours over coffee and crullers, repeating
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unbelievable yarns of his own programming exploits and
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reminiscing fondly of his long-extinct Colossus computer.
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Austin had no doubt that the ghost was who he claimed
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to be--the long-dead father of computer programming, Alan
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Turing. His taste in nappy flannel pants and British tweed
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jackets was unmistakable. Often he'd wrap his ghostly arm
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around Austin and tell him how alike they were--how they
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were just two wild-haired, stack-kicking guys mentally
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unravelled beyond the hope of shock therapy from years of
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addiction to long hexadecimal numbers. He'd tell him that
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the only difference between them was that when Austin was
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programming too hard, smoke came from his ears, just like in
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cartoons, something that never happened to Turing. Turing
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explained that early on in his programming career he'd had
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the foresight to train himself so that smoke never came from
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his ears. Austin wasn't sure whether to believe the ghost
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in this regard, but he found himself nonetheless frequently
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racing down the defense contractor's hallway to the
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washroom, in the middle of a research department meeting, to
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check in the mirror if his ears were actually smoking. So
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that his co-workers wouldn't think he had completely lost
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his mind, Austin told them about the ghost. He also told
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them how the ghost had warned him that smoke billowed from
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his ears whenever he worked too hard.
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Soon the engineering department buzzed with rumors
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about how the crazy assembly language programmer claimed to
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see the ghost of the greatest programmer who had ever lived.
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Austin didn't think anything of it, but it wasn't long
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before the rumors grew and grew. Soon everyone was talking
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about how Austin was also fraternizing with the ghosts of
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other long-deceased computer pioneers, including Blaise
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Pascal, Charles Babbage, and the first programmer ever, the
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sublime Lady Lovelace. Turing became livid with jealousy.
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For weeks, the frazzled ghost flung copies of <<Dr. Dobb's>>
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around the office and stamped on Austin's printouts. It
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took the chronically weary assembly programmer months to
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straighten up the mess. Despite Turing's unflagging efforts
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to make the programmer his pal, Austin remained terrified of
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him, as anyone would be of a ghost who claims to be as
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deranged as you. He did everything he could to convince the
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ghost to stay in his office closet and not come out.
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When Austin's new officemates starting filling the
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closet with Gumbys and miniature computer consoles and fists
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full of cables to make it look like NASA's mission control,
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he panicked. He worried that Turing, stubborn apparition
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that he was, would see it as the perfect excuse to
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permanently remove himself and his battered bike from among
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the coats and boots, and spend the rest of eternity
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pedalling around Austin's office, assailing him with
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unsolicited advice on keeping the margins of his computer
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code from getting out of control during heap sorts.
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Once the ghost finished eating his croissant, he
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remounted his fat-tired bike and wobbled out the cafeteria
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door and down the hall. Hearing the bike's rusty chain
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clanking farther and farther away, Austin cautiously
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extracted himself from beneath the salad bar. Quickly, he
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packed up his glue sticks and pocket mirrors. Once he heard
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no more of Turing, he scurried out the door. He was going
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home, he resolved. For the first time in more years than
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his worn-out mind could recall, he wasn't going to wait
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until he collapsed in exhaustion on the floor beneath his
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computer before thinking about rest. He was going to go
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home and hide under the covers where the ghost of Alan
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Turing would be least apt to look for him. The programmer
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raced down the hall as fast as he could. He didn't even
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stop to turn off the lights in his office or lock the door.
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He simply ran and ran, hoping that, if he did have a home,
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it wouldn't take him long to find it.
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<Finis>
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>>>>In the next episode, "Tense Moments in Mission Control,"
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a harrowing morning at Dingready & Derringdo Aerospace is
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made even more tense by a visit from boss Gus Farwick.
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Clipboard and camera in hand, the conniving engineer-manager
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is busy compiling documentation to terminate the employment
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of his two least favorite research engineers.<<<<
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