"Shane Tourtellotte - Swap-Out" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tourtellotte Shane)

Double-entry bookkeeping at ten paces? And the winner gets what?" He started to turn
away, affecting marginal interest in the matter. "Maybe gets the loser to take his next
pantry duty."
Each employee in the office took weekly turns keeping the pantry clean, a universally
detested job. Egan let it float there, like a casual notion, and walked back toward his desk.
"I'm game if you are."
He stopped, grinning. He hadn't angled often, but he knew the feeling of having a fish
strike.
***
The showdown came on Friday, two days later. Egan and Kell chose Mike Leung to create
a suitably complex accounting problem, at the cost of the loser taking over Mike's next
pantry shift as well. They petitioned Larssen to let them hold the match during a lunch
hour at the office. Egan let Kell do the convincing, knowing Larssen would mistrust him.
Noon arrived on Friday. The other workers moved the two receptionists' machines into
the main office area. They had identical capabilities to make things fair, and the only
external monitors in the office to allow for spectators. Kell offered her hand before they sat
down, and Egan took it with a good simulation of sportsmanship.
Over half the office stuck around to watch. Most of them hovered around Kell. Egan
did not mind. Sympathies are always with the underdogs -- until they get trounced, and the
winner's domination is all you remember.
Mike walked up with two jewel cases, and placed their contents in each separate disk
tray. "On my word 'go,' push your buttons to insert the disks. You will have to calculate net
balances for three separate dates, which are listed. Faster time wins. If you get one
answer wrong, I double your elapsed time as a penalty. Get two wrong, and you're
disqualified." He raised a stopwatch. "Ready, set, go!"
Egan got off an instant slower, and the data that then flooded into his head daunted
him. Mike had created an utter tangle of receipts, remittances, accounts payable and
receivable, interest tables, and all of it jumbled together, so randomized that there was no
underlying pattern for Egan to find and exploit. Mike had earned his pantry relief.
That was the last thought Egan spared for the outside world, as he plunged into the
problem. He had drilled on three varieties of accounting software to prepare himself over
the last two nights. He started imposing order with his brains, while the mainframe
handled the math. Yes, he could handle this.
She was probably peeking over right now, checking his progress. He counted on that
indiscipline to distract her, slow her down. That's how wet-brains worked, and no toy
supplement was going to change that.
"Done!"
He unplugged from the computer, leaning back in his chair. He craned his head over
to look at Mike's stopwatch. The top number had stopped at 4:20.06.
"It took my computer half an hour to crunch the numbers, before I randomized the
entries," Mike whispered. "You are fast."
"Yeah, I -- "
"Done."
Kell sighed and wiped her forehead. Egan blinked, then looked at the stopwatch
again. Kell had finished just fourteen seconds later than he had.
He sat stiffly while Mike consulted a card. "Kell and Egan got the same answers, and
the right answers. The winner, and champion, Egan Brock." Mike raised Egan's
unresisting arm.
The workers applauded, and some came over to congratulate Egan. More went over
to console Kell for her near miss.