Chapter 190
Translator: Dreamscribe
A month passed.
The traces of attack strategies had vanished from the whiteboard in the lobby. Instead, the researchers now spent their days studying Utopia in depth.
"The more I look at Utopia, the more astonishing it is. Noncommutativity is more fragile than you'd think. The mechanism to convert it into a commutative form isn't hard to find."
"Right. For instance, if the space is homogeneous, an attacker can catch onto the pattern. But in Yu-Riemann Geometry, the very concept of homogeneity doesn't exist. Even between the same two points, the distance isn't the same. Everything changes according to the curvature."
"It seems like it would require an enormous amount of computation. How on earth did he manage to keep it efficient?"
It wasn't as if cryptographers were fools for failing to implement a system like this. A cipher ultimately has to run in the real world. Inserting noise is the product of a compromise, one made in the pursuit of optimal function and efficiency.
Hyung-joo pushed up his glasses with his index finger and stepped in.
"That's precisely why Director Yu detested artificial noise. Conventional LEW-based ciphers weighed the system down by raising the degree and generating noise. But Utopia has no impurities. Since it's pure geometry with all the obstructions stripped away, the basic operations themselves become astonishingly light."
One researcher raised a hand and countered.
"But the curvature of the space is constantly changing, isn't it? Wouldn't the noncommutative operations derived from that place a tremendous burden on the system too?"
Hyung-joo squared his shoulders proudly, as if it were his own achievement. Thanks to their shared connection through Professor Kim Ji-yoon, he felt a one-sided sense of intimacy toward Seo-ha.
"That's exactly where another masterpiece from Team Apex comes into play. Do you remember the ST Compression that Seo-ha and Theo developed?"
"Ah! Don't tell me they applied that to the cipher's key mechanism?"
"That's right. For a user holding a legitimate key, this structure isn't heavy at all. The key itself acts as a compressed signpost, so even within the complex space of shifting curvature, it can pinpoint the shortest path to the destination in just a handful of operations."
"My goodness.... Then for an attacker without the key to find it...."
"The attacker doesn't know the range. In a space where the curvature changes with every step, they'd have to compute every one of the infinitely derived noncommutative operations by hand, wandering through the maze."
To an attacker, it was a hellish labyrinth that even computing for as long as the age of the Earth wouldn't be enough to solve, but to the owner holding the key, it was a passage as light and elegant as a feather. That was the cipher Utopia that Seo-ha had devised.
The researchers couldn't find words for a while. One of them murmured softly, almost like a sigh.
"It's unfair."
"...."
"...."
No one said it out loud, but they were all thinking the same thing.
Kim Ji-hye, the top researcher from Seoul National University, spoke with a sulky expression.
"I always thought the concept of talent was a bit vague. Whether there really is something that effort can't catch up to, or whether maybe it's just a difference in time.... Starting earlier, or having a better environment."
The people around her nodded.
"There's definitely something to that."
"You'd feel that way even more, Ji-hye, since you've been hearing you're talented your whole life."
She was one of those geniuses whose name was widely known not just in the industry but in society at large. After all, she was the sole perfect scorer in the year of that legendarily Brutal CSAT.
"I think this might be the first time I've ever seen it. A human being whose existence can't possibly be explained by factors like time or environment. And...."
She started to speak, then bit her lip.
Theodore Langford.
The number two of Apex Lab, who had co-developed ST Compression with Seo-ha. Even setting Yu Seo-ha aside as an exception, what exactly was different between him and her, and how? When it came to studying, she had confidence too. In all her life, there had never been anything in her field she thought she couldn't accomplish. But the moment she took Utopia apart, she knew it instinctively.
'I can't create this. No matter how much time I had, no matter how perfect an environment I was given.'
An intellect soaring so impossibly high that she could never reach it even if she repeated her life countless times.
What was even more astonishing was that cryptography wasn't his field of specialty. With just a few months of crash-course study, he and the team had produced Utopia.
She looked at Theo.
Yu Seo-ha had seemed like a person from another world from the very start. He wasn't even someone she could feel measured against. But Theo was different. He was someone who had walked a path similar to the one Ji-hye had lived. A being she felt she could understand yet couldn't explain, that was Theo. A thought suddenly struck her.
'Could it be that Seo-ha, as an environment, is what changed him?'
Ji-hye pondered whether her own life had simply lacked challenge.
And then there were the people beside her, their eyes gleaming.
'The figure who was involved in Utopia's design more deeply than anyone but Seo-ha.'
Min Jae-hyuk, one of the Korean-side researchers, took a sip of coffee and glanced sideways. He was a scholarship student from Korea's largest corporation, and he had infiltrated this place to steal the original of the cipher. But the very structure of Utopia rendered any theft attempt meaningless.
Even if stolen, it couldn't be implemented. To design a cipher of the same caliber, one would have to understand Yu-Riemann Geometry and ST Compression as deeply as they did.
'As if any such human could exist.'
Something visible yet impossible to steal. That absurd reality made him let out a hollow laugh. Which left him no choice but to turn his eyes toward the people instead.
Jae-hyuk set down his coffee cup. He'd have to rewrite the report. From scratch.
* * *
Ding-
Theo looked down at his phone.
"Oh! Another one?"
Lately, the calls from headhunters had increased sharply.
Messages filled the screen of Theo's smartphone.
[Let's start by arranging a meeting. I'm told they intend to offer you a blank check.]
[Five times your current salary, stock options on top of that, and full authority over team composition guaranteed. You're welcome to maintain your partnership with Director Yu.]
[It's a research institute under the Ministry of National Defense. I'd like to explain the details in person. For security reasons, I hope you'll understand that I can't say more than this.]
He scrolled through the flood of messages with indifference.
The blatant courtship of the massive capital and state institutions that moved the Republic of Korea. It was on a completely different level than back when he'd been in the States.
"Aha!"
Come to think of it, it made perfect sense.
They must have designated the three years Seo-ha and the team were in Korea as the golden window for recruiting away key personnel.
Theo shook his head and trudged down the corridor.
After walking for a while, he faintly heard the sound of a piano in the distance. A makeshift performance room, hastily built at Seo-ha's special request. When he pushed open the soundproof door and stepped in, a gentle piano melody drifted softly toward him.
'Playing the piano again.'
Theo leaned against the wall and waited quietly.
Years had passed since he'd met Seo-ha.
By now, Theo understood him to a certain degree. When Seo-ha's mind was troubled, he turned to the piano. Theo suspected it was something like a ritual for organizing the equations overflowing in his head. During the Riemann Hypothesis in particular, the symptoms had worsened to the point where he was listening to music at all times.
'But why now?'
Theo tilted his head.
The work here wasn't really that difficult for Seo-ha. In a way, it was like a vacation to settle his military service. The Utopia system was already fully designed, and the complex curvature calculations the researchers were analyzing in astonishment were, to Seo-ha, about as hard as a morning stroll.
He usually sank into himself like this only when he was touching the origins of the universe or grappling with a problem humanity had failed to solve for hundreds of years.
"Don't tell me?"
The words slipped out of his mouth before he realized it.
Just then, Seo-ha finished playing and turned around.
"When did you get here, Theo?"
"Just now."
Seo-ha wore the expression of someone pondering something deeply. Theo was certain his guess was right.
"So what problem are you wrestling with these days?"
Seo-ha made an awkward face. Then he gave a faint smile.
"I suppose it's fine to tell you, Theo."
"For your sake, I hope it's a Millennium Prize Problem."
"Huh?"
Seo-ha's eyes went round.
"So I'm right. There aren't many problems in the world that could make you this serious. It'd have to be something on that level to get us fired up, wouldn't it?"
Theo chuckled.
'I've come a long way too.'
From a mathematician known only to those in the know, to a precious commodity courted by leading corporations and organizations around the world. And now, a member of the first team in history to take on a second Millennium Prize Problem.
All of it was possible only because Seo-ha was there. If the headhunters had known that, they wouldn't have bothered with such pointless efforts.
'Even without Director Yu, you're perfectly capable of producing achievements that would go down in history.'
He scoffed inwardly.
Fools. The problem is that there is no Seo-ha.
Seo-ha looked at him intently and asked.
"Theo, do you believe there's a definite rule to the arrangement of prime numbers?"
"Hmm."
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"No. At least, I don't think there's a rule in any form we could understand. If I had to put it, I'd call it randomness that's very cleverly pretending to hide an order?"
"Hahaha!"
Seo-ha laughed, clutching his stomach.
"Randomness pretending there's a rule.... That's such a Theo way of putting it. I think the same. There's an essential chaos in this universe. Not complete chaos, but not a clear order either. I believe this is connected to the 'P equals NP' problem. And working with ciphers has made me think so all the more."
Theo laughed cheerfully.
"You really are hopeless. They told you to make a cipher and here you are poking at a Millennium Prize Problem. Isn't that a disease?"
At the words he'd tossed out as a joke, Seo-ha's expression turned serious.
His gaze turned toward the doll sitting atop the piano. Then, after hesitating for a moment, he spoke with difficulty.
"Theo."
"Yeah?"
"The truth is, there's a very wicked duck living inside me?"
"A duck?"
"Yes. That duck has been with me since I was very young, and it's an extremely curious little thing."
Theo stroked his chin.
'A metaphor? No, Seo-ha doesn't usually talk this way.'
Seo-ha was the incarnation of logic. He wouldn't have cared for vague expressions.... Theo decided to hear him out a little more.
"And?"
"That duck loves numbers and order. And it's terribly greedy. Greedy enough to gobble down even the Riemann Hypothesis in one bite and pat its belly. Now it wants different prey."
'A metaphor, then.'
"That's one excessively greedy duck."
Seo-ha's expression was forlorn.
"I don't think I'll ever escape this yoke for the rest of my life. So if a good offer comes, don't hesitate. My greed could end up making you miserable, Theo."
Seo-ha knew well that the destiny he carried could wear down the people around him. But Theo wasn't exactly a human of the normal variety either.
"What do you think is the greatest misfortune that could ever befall me?"
"What's that?"
Theo spoke with resolute eyes.
"Hearing about the achievements you go on to make from a TV or a newspaper at home. And if you add to that the fact that I had no share in them at all, it'd be perfect. Just thinking about it makes me want to die."
Seo-ha's eyes widened.
"Huh?"
Theo patted him on the shoulder.
"So let's not talk nonsense. If I'm no help to you, I'll gladly accept it."
Seo-ha said in a choked voice.
"There's no mathematician as brilliant as you, Theo, not if you searched the whole world."
"...."
On the way back to his lodging alone, a hot exhilaration welled up from deep within his heart.
The team would run again.
Theo felt as though he'd caught a glimpse of Seo-ha's secret. An intellectual hunger that could never be filled. Perhaps that was the price of the blessing God had bestowed upon Seo-ha.
"But why a duck, of all things?"
Even Theo, who knew Seo-ha best, couldn't make sense of that one thing no matter how hard he tried.
*****
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