I Got an Omnipotent Brain

Translator: Dreamscribe

"You can sign here."

Robert, the Scott family's legal counsel, spoke in a flat, dry voice. A fountain pen was placed on top of the documents.

Walter looked down at the desk for a moment.

His youth, when he had seemed to hold the whole world in his hands, the glory of the past flickered across the papers.

He had been a supernova in the world of mathematics.

At 27, before he had even received his doctorate, he won the Clay Research Award, and the following year, for solving a famous open problem in Number Theory, he claimed the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, awarded only to mathematicians under 32. Academia hailed him rapturously as the second coming of Euler.

At the very peak of that brilliant time, Helena Scott appeared.

It was a party hosted by the Scott Family, a house with a long and storied history. Leaving her countless suitors behind, she approached him as he stood blankly in a corner.

"Someone told me, you know? That you're probably the smartest person in your twenties in all of America."

Walter lifted his head and looked toward the voice.

Captivating blonde hair shimmered like golden thread under the chandelier light. Emerald-green eyes, small, dainty red lips. The many distinguished guests gathered at the party were flaunting their wealth and beauty, but Helena's beauty lost none of its radiance among them.

Walter barely collected himself before answering her.

"Who told you that? I'd keep my distance from that person. He's certain to be a braggart. Elijah Cronen, who just turned twenty this year, is far better than I am."

Helena's eyes widened as if surprised.

"Oh my! What a shame. I do like smart men."

Walter let out a small laugh.

"You can rest easy. Second or third place will surely be mine."

"I can't tell if you're being humble or arrogant."

"You're welcome to think it's both."

Helena's red lips curved into an alluring arc.

"Do you like to dance?"

The hand Helena extended was cool yet soft.

It was a dreamlike time. Helena would appear at Walter's lab unannounced and uncork expensive vintage wines, and he wrote embarrassing, childish letters for her.

She loved Walter's intellect, and Walter indulged in the warmth of the glamorous world she brought him. Even the condition that he take his wife's family name in order to marry was, to him, a trivial opportunity cost.

"...."

Walter gripped the fountain pen with a trembling hand.

"As you've no doubt already read, a waiver of property division rights is also included. Mrs. Scott has generously offered to pay a certain amount in alimony, so you won't have trouble making a living."

The lawyer tapped the stack of documents with his finger.

"You must return the Scott family name immediately. That includes all research and copyrights from the past ten years conducted under the family's patronage."

"...."

Walter stared up at him. Robert spoke with that smile peculiar to lawyers.

"If you have any objections, you may stop. But I wouldn't recommend it. Miss Helena wishes for this process to be concluded as quietly as possible. If this goes to court, we'll have no choice but to reveal that you, Mr. Walter, misappropriated family funds for personal use."

Walter let out a hollow laugh.

The woman who had once so praised and exalted his intellect was now not merely discarding him, but trying to destroy him.

Scritch.

Walter Scott. No, the middle-aged man who no longer had the right to use even that name had to humiliatingly sign the documents against his will.

* * *

Walter Callaway.

The man who had once been a distinguished professor and Walter Scott leaned back listlessly in a wooden chair in his front yard.

This house was the only inheritance his parents had left him. He had never given it a thought while living in the Scott family's castle-like mansion, but his reality was now so wretched that he felt grateful just to have somewhere to return to.

Staring blankly up at the sky, he ruminated on what had gone wrong.

"The Riemann Hypothesis."

No matter how many times he thought it over, the answer was the same. That famous problem, the one he had clung to fruitlessly for twenty years, was the problem.

Number one in citations for papers related to the Riemann Hypothesis.

'If the Riemann Hypothesis is ever proven, it will be by Walter Scott.'

That was what people openly said in academia.

He had, in fact, published several papers regarded as approaching a proof, and with each one his standing only rose higher.

Then Seo-ha appeared.

A young boy who had supposedly proven the Four Color Theorem. It was when he took on the task of verifying the boy's proof at Cronen's recommendation. The boy grew at an unstoppable pace. And five years later, he finally conquered even the Riemann Hypothesis.

'Was quitting the university the problem?'

He had believed the proof was not far off.

He begrudged even the hours spent lecturing and couldn't put his heart into teaching. When told that student complaints were pouring in, he threw down his resignation without a second thought. His wife's family was wealthy, and he wanted for nothing.

But looking back, it seemed he had made the wrong move at every decisive moment. If only he had stayed at MIT and taken Seo-ha into his lab.

His professorship, the famous problem he had devoted decades to, his wealthy in-laws, all lost, and all that remained to him was one old house.

Every day he came out to the garden and replayed his past life. What had ruined him, why he had to grow old in such a pitiful state.

In hindsight, the most brilliant achievement he had ever attained was a single annotation in the references of Seo-ha's Riemann Hypothesis paper.

7. Walter Scott

-A New Approach to the Distribution of Zeros of the Riemann Zeta Function

「Professor Walter Scott's paper was the lighthouse that kept me from losing my way when I first studied the Riemann Hypothesis in high school. With gratitude to the professor who so sharply identified the key issues and limitations of the problem.」

Number 7 out of more than thirty references.

A hollow laugh escaped him. Thinking he couldn't let it end like this, he tried to do something, anything, but no motivation would come.

How does the devil know to arrive at a person's weakest moment?

Creak-

With the squeal of the iron gate, an unfamiliar shadow fell across the yard.

Early forties, dressed cleanly with not a thread out of place, but with sharp eyes. His straight back and squared posture made Walter think of a soldier.

"Professor Walter Scott?"

Walter grimaced as if he couldn't bear to hear it.

"Callaway."

The man smiled slyly.

"Ah! I forgot you were divorced. Now that you're no longer a Scott, what could you possibly have left?"

"I don't know what you want, but I have nothing to give, so please leave."

Swish.

Walter waved his hand as if shooing away a nuisance, but the man paid no mind and sat down across the table.

He couldn't remember much of what came after.

The man proposed something, and he accepted it. He knew their purpose was evil, but strangely, he felt no guilt whatsoever. Walter would later come to understand why.

'Whether the world burns or not, what does that have to do with me?'

He was, after all, a scholar who could no longer do anything.

All the research he had done now belonged to the Scott family, and he was too old to start something new. Why did he, once a promising genius, have to end up like this? He resented everything in the world.

The two papers the man had left behind.

Slide.

For the first time in a truly long while, Walter reached out his hand and read the printed words.

"Our researchers say that if you combine these two properly, something outrageous could come out of it. But they also said there aren't many mathematicians who could pull it off.

I think you could. What do you say?"

"What makes you think I would do such a thing?"

The man abruptly leaned in and whispered softly into Walter's ear.

"Money. Enough to buy the Scott family outright, in a single payment.

And you deserve compensation for what you've suffered. Don't you have a stake in the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis? Are you going to let that child Yu Seo-ha hog all the glory for himself?"

Walter's eyes wavered.

The true identity of the negative emotion that had been gnawing at him for months. His mathematician's ego had instinctively kept the thought from taking shape, but with a single word from the man, the dam broke.

It was a bitter, festering sense of injustice.

Twenty years.

He had devoted the golden years of his life solely to the Riemann Hypothesis. It was self-evident that the countless stepping stones he discovered along the way had become the foundation for the actual proof.

"Number seven."

A sense of deprivation that no such token courtesy could ever fill.

So there would be no problem in using his theory. And he could return the pain of having one's achievements exploited by another, besides.

For the first time in years, his mind was clear.

It felt like returning to those days when he had believed he could do anything. He threw himself madly into the research. And the man's words turned out to be true.

'How many people in the world could see this connection? And how many could actually implement it?'

His shattered self-esteem was being restored.

Walter realized that negative motivation held a far more powerful force than pure aspiration. And that he was more gifted at destruction than at creation.

"You gave me a mere number 7, but I am not so unconscionable a man. So I'll put both authors' names on the algorithm, just as they are."

Thus the SS Algorithm was born.

* * *

FBI New York field office.

Bzzzt-

The fluorescent light blinked.

The interrogation room was cramped. Gray walls and a steel table. Walter rested his hands on the cold metal and stared at the man across from him.

"You don't know who's behind this? Do you expect us to believe that?"

Thwack-

The agent slammed a file down on the desk in irritation.

But Walter didn't so much as flinch.

Ngh.

Behind the two-way mirror, Miller grimaced.

Two full days had passed since Walter's arrest, but the FBI had failed to find any meaningful lead on who was behind it all.

The hackers were hired mercenaries. Tracing back up the chain led only to isolated cells that could be tracked no further. Whoever had covered these tracks was no amateur.

One agent looked at him and said,

"This isn't going to be easy. He says he might as well just die like this."

Miller sighed.

"So it's all over anyway, is that it? What do the profilers say?"

"They say he's a textbook intellectual-validation type of criminal. He won't talk to us because we're not on his level."

"What about putting Juan on him? He's a math PhD. Maybe they'd actually communicate."

The agent shook his head.

"He ran out in under twenty minutes. They got to talking about the algorithm and he was out of his depth almost immediately."

"Huh?"

The agent imitated Walter's manner of speaking.

"This is covered even at the undergraduate level, my friend. You were not a gifted student, were you? Which would be why you're working in a place like this."

Walter admitted that the SS Algorithm was his own work, yet refused to say a single word about his motives or who was behind it.

Outside, the news that a terror ring had been taken down had thrown everything into an uproar. Every media outlet had swarmed in to speculate about the mastermind, and now they were blaming the FBI's incompetence.

'We need to throw them some kind of scrap.'

Every agency imaginable was demanding they hand Walter over. Even the White House was applying pressure. He felt like he was suffocating under it all.

Just then, the sound of someone running came from outside.

Knock knock!

"Come in."

Juan, the one who had supposedly fled the interrogation room, shuffled in hesitantly.

"Um, Chief."

"What?"

"Seo-ha asked me to pass along a message to you, sir."

Slide.

He held out a note to Miller.

「There's something I want to confirm with Professor Walter. Please let me meet him.」

Letting a heinous criminal meet with a civilian was, ordinarily, out of the question. But short of torture, they had no other options.

Still, there was something he needed to confirm first.

As if he had made up his mind, Miller opened the door to the interrogation room and stepped inside. Walter was looking down at his fingertips with an indifferent expression.

"Walter."

He lifted his head. His eyes were those of a man who had given up on everything.

"Yu Seo-ha is on his way to see you right now."

"Ah...."

Fear, shame, bewilderment.

Along with that single cry, a host of emotions flashed through Walter's eyes.

Miller was certain now. The only person who could ever make him talk had been Seo-ha from the very beginning.

*****

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