“Vick Murley,” said Andrew. “Why do I feel like I’ve heard that name before?”

“Maybe he’s popular in the programming realm,” said Gus.

“Maybe. We finally got to introduce ourselves to the class, I thought that would never happen.” He looked around. “Where’s Roy? I didn’t get to talk to him today.”

“He left as soon as class ended,” said Willard. “He looked angry.”

“He always looks angry,” responded Gus.

“That’s not true,” said Andrew, although his sharp eyebrows did make him appear distraught.

“Vick Murley!” he yelled excitedly as he walked forward.

“Vick is sufficient.”

“How are your classes going?”

“It’s been good,” he said and poured two glasses of crimson. “Building the momentum is a slow process,” he handed one drink over, “but it’s all uphill from here. What about you?” He leaned on his desk, whose screen was scattered with open documents. “How was your expedition?”

“Well, you know, the usual,” he said and stared blankly at the mat the floor was made of. ‘65, A, 66, B, 67, C…’

“The usual?”

“Oh,” he broke his attention, “yeah, didn’t get us anywhere. Just found another function. We tried to find its caller, but we lost its output on the radar.”

“Where was this?”

“At Cobweb Forest, near the mountain.”

“That’s quite far.”

“We were on a gyroplane. Here,” he said and took out his phone. “You’ll be amazed by how enormous this function was, made sense that the output wasn’t stored. It was probably doing other useful execution.” He turned the phone to Vick, with a picture of the colossus.

“It’s like learning math all over again.” Willard shook his head.

“The low-level stuff, yes, it kind of is.”

“Low-level stuff?”

“Yeah. Binary is closer to the instructions computers recognize, meaning it’s low-level.”

“I heard Mister Vick say something about machine code. Is that low-level too?”

“That’s higher than binary, and programming languages are higher than machine code.”

“Wow, you know a lot about this, Andrew. You talk like an apprentice.”

“Is there anything lower than binary?” asked Gus.

He thought for a moment. “I guess voltages would be that? Since computers read two possible states depending on the voltage, which we call zero and one. Now we’re getting into hardware, so I’m not entirely sure.”

“What ugly colors,” he said looking at the mat. “Green and gold don’t go together.”

“Well, what colors do?”

“Blue and white, yes, blue and white,” he repeated.

“Blue? I don’t like blue.”

“You don’t like blue?” he said, astonished. “How could you not like blue?”

“Blue is everywhere. I go into the classroom, and I see blue. I go to lab, I see blue. Can’t do without blue.”

“Exactly!” he snapped. “Can’t do without blue. It’s such a bright and lively color!”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said with an ironic smile. But, his words weren’t heard.

“I’ll get one that’s fresh and have it installed for you during class.”

“No, I’m fine with green and gold.”

“It will be done before the end of class,” he asserted.

“Nah, Amare,” he patted his shoulder as he walked past him. “I don’t like white either.”

“But,” he said and turned around. “Your office is so… boring.”

“Exactly!” he snapped and looked at him by the turn of his head. “Office and boring, can’t think of a better pair.” He held the door open. “Lunch?”

“I’m glad some of the syntax includes English,” said Willard. “If statements make sense.”

“Yeah, being able to choose what code gets executed at runtime is extremely useful.”

“Andrew, you gotta relax. I have no idea what you mean by stuff like ‘runtime.’”

“Oh, runtime. Right, I mean, when the program is executing. And, compile-time would be when the compiler translates your code into machine code.”

“Ah,” Willard held his head. “Compiler. I heard Mister Vick use that word, but I don’t know what it means.”

“The compiler is what changes your code from the language you are writing in, to machine code so the computer can understand it.”

Lab grown meat, alongside mushrooms and toast. “Boring office, boring food,” he said and pointed at the single sandwich Vick had prepared. “Try some toast.”

“No, I’m not too hungry.”

“Oh, come on, try some at least.”

“I’ll survive, don’t worry.”

“I know,” he said with a mouthful of mushrooms and toast. “But, it’s good. So, who are your new favorites?” And a mushroom escaped him.

He closed his eyes. “I forget their names.”

Amare laughed, luckily his mouth was empty. “You’re so bad with names.”

“Just some student was asking me thought provoking questions.”

“Thought provoking? That’s praise I don’t hear a lot.”

He opened his eyes. “I can’t remember if it was one student who asked the questions or a whole lot of them.”

let isApprentice = false; if (isApprentice) { console.log(“Outside we venture!”); } else { console.log(“More work…”); }

“Run the code!” said Willard.

“There’ll only be disappointment,” said Gus and executed the code.

‘More work…’

“Like I said: disappointment.”

“What about all the other ranks?”

“Oh, I can add them.”

let isApprentice = false; let isScholar = false; let isWizard = false; if (isApprentice) { console.log(“Outside we venture!”); } else if (isScholar) { console.log(“Time to teach!”); } else if (isWizard) { console.log(“Onto expeditions!”); } else { console.log(“More work…”); }

‘More work…’

“Well, I don’t know why I was expecting something different.”

“You gotta change the boolean to true when we become apprentices.”