Chapter III

Once again, Alex had been requested by his superior superiors to bestow his magnificent and munificent presence upon the soldiers at Brecon Beacons. Alex wondered if this was maybe a flimsy attempt at relieving their guilt by giving him an occasional break (other than from his unauthorised running off and hiding in Greece with Tom during summer), while at the same time satisfying their Head of Spy Agency tendencies and deluding themselves that they were making him keep useful. Or perhaps he was getting this the wrong way around; he was the entertainment, not they.

This time, Alex had been investigating posed as a Russian transfer student in a private, very fancy, very expensive, boys' boarding school in Scotland. Thus when he presented himself to the Sergeant, his hair had been slicked back in a not-quite side part, and he wore pressed grey slacks, a white starched-and-ironed shirt, black morning coat and waistcoat, a tie, and – this was the icing on the gourmet cake – pointy shoes and a top hat. A remnant from his escape, he wore an artist's smock and carried a small pot of blue paint. Needless to say, the Sergeant (completely unprofessional, in Alex's humble opinion) didn't bother hiding his amusement, and laughed openly. It was such a terrifying sight that Alex couldn't help but check the man's forehead for fever. Having sobered, the Sergeant briskly directed Alex to one of the lecture halls, telling him to put his new education to good use and teach the men something they didn't know.

Alex trudged off begrudgingly.

The hall seemed to be mainly filled with the dregs of the FFSAS, those who had finished lunch late had been unable to find a free firing range or fighting hall, and so were told to come to Alex's lecture for something useful to do . Alex met their disbelieving and, frankly, rather insulting stares with a viciously pointed one of his own, and asked what they didn't know.

The men held their blank expressions with fortitude and shrugged, disinterested and, dare he say it, uninterested.

Alex felt a glimmer of respect for all his old teachers for putting up with the general apathy from teenagers in a classroom. "You must not know something," he cried.

A relatively new recruit slumping carelessly in his chair cocked his head at Alex, daring his attention. Warily, Alex nodded towards him, suspicious when a slow smirk spread over the recruit's angular face.

"Well," the recruit began, flicking his sparkling gaze around his comrades, "there are many things we know we know." The men chuckled appreciatively. They knew where this was going. "And," the recruit began scrutinising his nails, "there are very few things we know we don't know."

His comrades nodded solemnly, suppressing their obvious urge to giggle. Alex was not amused.

The recruit was yet to finish. "It's rather pointless, if you'll excuse me, sir, to ask us what we don't know… Because we have so little that we know we don't know that all that's left is what we don't know we don't know and that, sir, is impossible for us to elucidate."

The men broke into scattered applause. One of them whistled.

Alex cleared his throat. "If you have so little you know you don't know, then clearly you haven't worked hard enough to elucidate what you do know you don't know, and if you don't know what you don't know, then you can't know how much you do know or don't know, and you can't know, sir, what's impossible for you to know. And that, sir, is a grievous state of affairs, don't you know?"

Silence. "I know, right?" the recruit shot back lamely. No whistles this time.

"Now," Alex huffed. "Anyone else have any ideas?"

More shrugging, and everyone seemed to find something interesting to look at, anywhere but at him. The corner of the doorframe seemed to warrant particular fascination.

Alex frowned. He pointed to the last man to look away, another new recruit on the opposite side of the room. "You there."

The man glanced up from his inspection of his friend's mud-stained knees, and looked around for someone else to save him from this crazy boy in a suit, simultaneously mentally kicking himself for not being as active as he could have been in examining the intricacies of mud splatter.

Alex was merciless. "Say what you don't know. Rather," he continued, flippantly, "say, what don't you know?"

White-faced, his eyes wide like Madagascar's Mort (except that the man was much brawnier), the man hesitated and then vomited his words. "Um, well, I-s'pose-we-need-more-covert-tactic-simulations!" He closed his mouth, squeezing his lips together as if to mimic the wide-mouthed-turned-small-mouthed frog.

And then it was Alex's turn to freeze, as he realised he now had to teach the men. He'd gotten so caught up in making them answer that he'd forgotten his ultimate mission. He stalled for time by nodding sternly and slowly. "Thank you."

Maybe it was the suit he was wearing, or maybe it was that the FFSAS reminded him so strongly of school, but whatever the reason, Alex was struck by inspiration from his most recent maths teacher, who'd loved to present problems to the class. The professor had eventually given them a problem none of them had solved without the use of the school's free wifi, and had involved locking them in a cupboard until they used logic to figure out whether they were wearing hats or not the next day, and…

Alex shook himself back on track. He'd have to tweak the scenario so there were no gnomes, of course, but he was ready. "Right," he said to the group, "You've been captured by this group and you're sitting in your cell together."

"That's stupid," muttered a soldier, "it makes it so much easier to plan our escape."

"Shush!" shushed Alex. "Tomorrow they're going to execute you with their traditional method of justice and mercy. They're going to line you up, shortest to tallest, and put caps on you. The caps are either red or blue, and who gets what colour is random."

"Fiddlesticks," said another soldier, "I like red. If they gave me a blue cap I'd give them kittens."

The other soldiers shushed him.

Alex continued, pleased with their apparent interest. "You can see all the hats in front of you, but not behind you or your own. They ask you in turn, beginning from the back, what colour hat you're wearing, and you can only answer 'red' or 'blue'. No signalling each other or anything. If the colour you say is incorrect, they shoot you. Otherwise, you go free."

"What kind of messed up group is this?" scowled a soldier with wide-set eyes and a fierce scowl.

Levelling them with a steady look, Alex delivered his question. "What do you plan the night before?"

Whispering ensued between the soldiers, each of them shooting Alex a calculating glare every so often. The aforementioned spy sat back on his heels, smugly proud of his conundrum.

Eventually, a weedy looking fellow with a ferret-look about him spoke up over the whispers. "We plan how to survive?"

"Yes, but what is your plan?" Alex huffed, rolling his eyes.

The man shrugged.

Alex closed his eyes and lifted his face to the heavens to beg forgiveness for whatever he had done to deserve this. Was teaching the soldiers to go for a man's precious bits last time too much?

Meanwhile, the soldiers had returned to whispering, progressed to muttering, murmuring, and were now evolved into a full-blown debate with a chairman and secretary. Tense glares were levelled across the oval oak table which had appeared from the Sergeant's office, and was now bestrewn with blueprints, notes and swatches for cloths, and a book on colour theory.

The soldiers seemed to have divided into three factions. Two were fiercely arguing, one of them red-faced and growling, the other sneering with crossed-arms and snide comments. The third group was mainly huddled together, and gesticulating quietly, some soldiers on the periphery watching the other arguments, frowning.

As Alex stood stupefied, a man who seemed to be the head of the red-faced bunch slammed his fist on the table. "You can't handle the truth!" he bellowed.

The sneering group flinched backwards with a hiss. Their leader, a man with a long face and heavy lids curled his upper lip. "Well then, Pig, why don't you tell our esteemed leader your plan, and see how he grades you?"

Pig paused. Then he straightened up, planted his feet widely and took a deep breath. "Fine. I will." He turned to Alex.

Alex raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"Sir, we have a plan."

Alex nodded.

Pig remained silent.

Alex remained silent.

The room remained silent.

Alex realised Pig was waiting for a verbal response. He coughed. "Continue, soldier."

Pig's face cleared. "So the hats are distributed randomly – yes?" (Alex nodded). "That means, according to probability, half the hats should be blue and half red, so if every man just says the same colour (chosen arbitrarily), then in all probability, half will go free."

Back in the boarding school, another student had suggested this as a plan. The teacher's response had been scathing, but Alex decided to be kinder. He smiled. Kindly. "Remember, probability is not set in stone. Randomness is less likely to mimic probabilities when you only have thirteen men. It could randomly turn out that everyone is wearing red. At best, all your men go free."

Pig beamed. Happily.

"But, soldier, at worst, all your men die because everyone is wearing… blue."

Pig slumped and sidled back to his group who welcomed him with open arms and engulfed him into their midst. Together, they muttered something about the end of innocence and the darkness of the blonde ponce's heart, whispering condolences to their true, wise friend called Pig.

Alex surveyed the rest of the soldiers. "Have any of you got any better ideas?"

More fevered buzzing from the remaining two groups; Pig's was fanning him and patting his back.

Eventually, the man who had invited Pig to put forward his plan stepped forward, still sneering.

Alex nodded. "Yes…?"

"Skink."

"Yes, Skink?" Alex decided to humour him.

"The plan is that every second man – starting from the first – says the colour of the soldier's hat in front of him. The man in front now knows the colour of his hat. So he gets it correct." Skink rocked back on his heels with an expression of smugness, hurling another sneer towards Pig.

"Hmm…" Alex pretended to give the plan some thought, watching Skink inflate in triumph. "At worst, soldier, half your men die... all those who were sacrificed to save the man in front. Not a very good plan, is it?"

Skink deflated like a balloon, leaving him limp and slightly wrinkled. His group slithered towards him and drew him back, frowning at Alex as though he should have felt guiltier. Alex shrugged to himself; this was getting fun.

He decided to give them a hint. "You have to be logical. Think as if you were computers."

The soldiers looked at him askance.

"In binary," he told them. It was a terrible clue, but maybe it would motivate them to think of something.

Tentatively, a man with a small mouth from Pig's group raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Sir, Frog, sir. Reporting for duty, sir…" He fidgeted, clearly wondering if he should add another 'sir' for good measure.

Alex raised a bemused eyebrow.

"Sir, what if the man at the back looks at all the hats in front of him? Then, he says whichever colour is most predominant. Then, everyone says that colour. Then, at worst half die. But then, you said a half-half ratio was unlikely. So then, it's likely that more than half would go free. Sir."

No-one had thought of this at the boarding school. Then again, these men actually seemed to be trying. "Well done," Alex said, "it's not the answer, but it's on the right track with the counting. Remember, binary."

As if to himself, Skink muttered, "But this is red and blue; binary is one and zero, what a silly…"

Alex couldn't help but answer. "Exactly! Words are squiggles on paper with no meanings, bar those with which our imaginations clothe them. Squiggles or noises. It depends whether you're writing or talking, colouring or counting, but they're the same, really…" he trailed off, fascinated with his own tangent.

The final group, which had been silent up until now, gave a collective jump, as though a spotlight, rather than a light bulb, had lit up above their heads. As one, they surged towards Alex, with one man at the forefront. "Sir, we think we have the answer," they gushed.

"The night before," began their spokesperson, the others interjecting as necessary, "'red' (or 'blue'; it doesn't really matter which) is given the additional meaning of 'odd (or even) number of red (or blue) hats'. Then, the next day, the man at the back counts the number of red (or blue) hats. If it is odd, he says 'red' (or 'blue') and if it is even he says 'blue' (or 'red'). Then the man in front of him counts the number of red (or blue) hats. If the number has not changed from odd to even (or even to odd), then he knows he is wearing blue (or red) and says the correct colour. Otherwise, he knows he is one of the red (or blue) hats counted and thus says 'red' (or 'blue'). Each man goes through the same process, logically, so that at best everyone lives and at worst only one soldier dies, assuming everyone counts correctly."

Silence followed their announcement much like the silence after a dramatic musical piece.

Alex continued the atmosphere and clapped his hands. "Eureka, he's – they've – got it!"

The group erupted into a mass of cheers, some of them whistling loudly, as Pig's and Skink's respective groups dissolved into tears. Taking advantage of the hullabaloo, Alex escaped out of the room. He wondered when they would notice the blue he'd painted on the Sergeant's forehead, ostensibly checking for fever.

The End

So... It's been a while... Blame it on Real Life. Currently, I've got a bit of a break, and I should be able to write more often.

However, I have been writing a proper extension of Shot, which apparently people have wanted, so that should be something to look forward to.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter; I thought it would be appropriate, this story being my first ever posted, and now the first story I update on my 'comeback'.

Thanks for reading!

-Wolfern