Probability was a little town on the edge of the sea. It was surrounded only by a rough wooden fence, nothing like the high stone walls of Symbol, and the main entrance seemed to be unguarded. Laurie was walking through the gates, when—
“Excuse me, dear! Hello, on your left.” An elderly lady was sitting in the shade just inside. She held a large book on her lap. Her name tag read Jane Hecate, Border Security.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there,” said Laurie.
“That’s all right, dear. But before you come in I have to make sure you are on the List.”
Laurie had played this game before. “My name is Eponymous Bach, and my password is—”
“Hold on, dear, hold on! One thing at a time. First let’s look up your name.” She opened the heavy book and started to scan the pages with her finger, letter by letter.
“E . . . E . . . Ah, E! Here we go.”
It was painfully slow.
“P . . . P . . . E-P! . . . E-P-O . . . E-P-O . . . no.”
Jane closed the book with a thump.
“Sorry, not on the List.”
“What?”
“You’re not on the List, dear. There are Es, and E-Ps, but there are no names that start with E-P-O. If the start of your name isn’t on the List, there’s no reason to keep looking for the rest of it, now is there? It’s only logical.”
“But her—my name must be on the List! She’s a great—I mean, I am—” Laurie sputtered.
“Are you a foreigner? I bet your name is spelled differently where you come from. That can happen, especially with foreigners. Why don’t we try again?”
Maybe she did have an account after all. “Is it under ‘Laurie Ipsum’?”
“Let me see.” Fllliiiip! “L . . . L . . . L! A . . . U . . . R . . . I . . . Nope. Not here, but I’m sure we’ll find it.”
“It could be spelled Lauren Ipsum.”
“L . . . A . . . U . . . R . . . E . . . No, not that way either.” “Uh, Hugh . . . Rustic?”
“H . . . H . . . H! H-U-G-H R-U-S-T-I-C. Ah, there you are.”
“Great!”
“I’m so glad we could find you!” Jane said. “Your name is spelled quite a few different ways, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is. Thanks!” Laurie turned to go inside.
Jane held her back with a surprisingly strong grip.
“Your password, dear?”
“Oh! Is it ‘Rustic’?”
“No.”
“Turtle?”
“No.”
“Algorithm?”
“A . . . L . . . No.”
“Good Enough?”
“No.”
Laurie was stumped. “Now what?” she whispered to Xor. “She doesn’t care if I try every word in the dictionary. But we’ll be here all month!”
“I have an idea,” Xor whispered back. “Try ‘Abstraction.’”
“What is that? I don’t even—”
“My third cousin is a Thesaurus. Trust me!”
“Is it Ab-stract-tion?” Laurie asked Jane.
“A . . . B . . . S . . . No, dear.”
“‘Trust me,’ huh?” Laurie said to Xor.
“Come to think of it, I never liked that cousin.”
“Hey . . . did you notice something?”
“Is it dinner time already?” Xor asked hopefully.
“No! When I said ‘Turtle,’ she said no right away,” Laurie said.
“So? It’s not the password,” Xor said.
“But when I said ‘Algorithm,’ she took longer to say no. And with Abstraction, she took a little longer than that, moving her finger over the page . . .” Laurie cleared her throat and spoke to Jane. “Is the password, um, About?”
“A . . . B . . . O . . . No.”
“See?” she whispered.
“Okay, but what does it mean?”
“Maybe it means the real password starts with AB! So if we keep guessing AB words . . .”
Letter by letter they cracked Rustic’s password. It was difficult for Laurie to think of words that started with the right letters. She did not know many of the words Xor told her to try, but he swore they were real, on the honor of Thesauruses everywhere. She knew they were getting warmer because Jane would take longer and longer to say no.
“Abend!”
“A . . . B . . . E . . . No,” Jane replied.
“Abdicate!”
“A . . . B . . . D . . . No.”
“Abrogate!”
“A . . . B . . . R . . . O . . . No.”
“It starts with ABR!” Laurie whispered to Xor. “Abrupt!”
“A . . . B . . . R . . . U . . . No.”
“Abraid!”
“A . . . B . . . R . . . A . . . I . . . No.”
“We’re getting close,” Xor said in her ear. “What starts with ABRA?”
“Abracadabra?” Laurie said out loud.
“A-B-R-A-C-A-D-A-B-R-A!” said Jane. “That’s the password, right as rain. Welcome to Probability!”