Chapter 205
Translator: Dreamscribe
The air inside the conference room had changed.
No one said it, but everyone could feel it. The road ahead would not be a smooth one.
Seo-ha spoke in a quiet voice.
"If my hypothesis is correct, complexity theory is going to change dramatically. Because from now on, time won't be the only standard."
He wrote letters up on the board.
Node.
Path.
Branch.
Extinction.
It was like looking at something alive, and it sent a chill down Sri's spine.
Seo-ha smiled as though it were nothing.
"Of course, I'm not trying to reject the Turing Machine itself. I only want to point out that, just as Newtonian mechanics did, it fails to explain the next stage."
Sri looked around the room.
Cold sweat broke out on him.
He was the only engineer in this room. To pure mathematicians, the Turing Machine might be a logical limit to be overcome, but to engineers it was not.
He knew better than anyone how beautiful and solid a world the giant named Turing had built.
'Everything a human can compute can be implemented on a Turing Machine.'
The Church-Turing Thesis. It was not a proven theorem.
But since no counterexample had appeared in nearly a century, it was accepted in computer science almost like an absolute axiom.
"Sounds interesting."
Theo said, stroking his chin.
'It's not that simple, I keep telling you!'
Sri wanted to scream.
The reason Alan Turing was revered was that time itself had proven him right. Over a long stretch of time, the Turing Machine he had devised became the one and only yardstick dividing what humanity could compute from what it could not.
Computers, smartphones, semiconductors, programming languages, even artificial intelligence. Every computation in modern civilization ultimately traced back to the machine Turing had drawn on paper in 1936. Why else would the term "Turing completeness" be so widely used in engineering?
"Um, I have a question."
Sri worked up the courage and raised his hand.
"Yes!"
Seo-ha nodded with a bright smile.
"A Turing Machine is a deterministic machine that reads, writes, and moves across the symbols written on a tape. But if a particular path extinguishes itself, as your hypothesis suggests, then that's less like a machine and more like a living thing with a will of its own.
Is it really possible to build such a device, from an engineering standpoint?"
It was a pure question, one only an engineer would ask.
A theory was not meant to exist merely as a concept; it had to be actually applicable.
Seo-ha's eyes sparkled, as if the question delighted him.
His voice went up an octave.
"That's exactly what I wanted us all to work on together, starting now!"
At Seo-ha's guileless answer, Sri's mind went faint.
"Ah..."
'But what if it's actually completed?'
Countless fields of study would have to be rewritten.
He could almost see a vision of millions of engineers clutching the backs of their necks and collapsing.
"But verifying the theory has to come first, of course. This is only an outline, after all. Starting today, let's each try to develop our own ideas! Here's the conceptual diagram I have in mind."
Delighted, Seo-ha picked up his pen again.
Scribble-scribble.
Sri gazed at Seo-ha with distant eyes.
'How can this be?'
He had thought he knew Seo-ha well enough, but it hadn't been nearly enough.
Every mathematician and engineer he knew was someone who found the optimal solution within the constraints of reality. The limits of axiomatic systems, the wall of computability, the gap between the continuous and the discrete.
But Seo-ha was different.
As if gravity acted on him alone, he swam freely, crossing back and forth over the limits of reality.
To an engineer who worshipped the god named Turing, it was a lecture that bordered on blasphemy, yet paradoxically Sri could not tear his eyes away from the strange diagrams Seo-ha was drawing.
It was an ideal he had never once dared to dream of as an engineer. And yet it was a new world he couldn't help but instinctively feel was beautiful.
* * *
[Tier Zero Status Report]
- To NSA Senior Researcher David
It's late autumn here in Korea. How's the weather over there?
Korea at this time of year is like heaven for someone who enjoys hiking the way I do. The autumn leaves are just past their peak and beginning to fall.
When you climb hard to the top and stand on the ridge, you can take in everything all around you.
Korea's autumn mountains are a little much. In the good way, I mean, excessively beautiful. Leaves burning in every shade ripple along the ridgeline, and right beside them runs a clear stream. Colorful leaves drifting down that clear water make for a scene that's honestly as beautiful as a painting. If you ever get the chance to come to Korea, you and I could...
Ah! Sorry. I didn't mean to go on about hiking. I opened this email because there's been a notable development in Tier Zero's activity.
Team Apex has been behaving strangely lately.
One day, Theo called me aside. I was tense, wondering if my cover as a spy had been blown, but he handed me a file and said.
"Joseph, it looks like we won't be able to devote ourselves to Utopia for a while. Do you think you could take this over?"
Inside the file was a classified update roadmap.
My god! These people genuinely believe, without a shred of doubt, that I'm their colleague!
My responsibility has grown terribly heavy. I'd like to attach the file, but I trust you'll understand my position, given that I have to maintain security.
After returning to Korea, the entire team appears to have thrown itself into a new project.
I tried to find out by buying Su-jeong some tteokbokki, but unfortunately I couldn't pin down the topic. The literature they're reviewing is such a mess that I couldn't even guess at the direction.
Computational complexity theory, Turing Machines, cell biology, evolutionary theory, the Incompleteness Theorem.
The range is far too broad. What on earth are they trying to do?
I know, David!
I'm the best spy there is. I will never take my eyes off them. If I learn anything new, I'll send another email.
* * *
"My lady, it's time to get ready."
Morris, the butler, knocked carefully on the door.
"I know."
Cecilia yawned and rose from her desk.
Alan Turing's 1936 paper and diagrams charting the intricate energy-metabolism processes of mitochondria lay scattered about. To her, who had lived her whole life in the world of numbers, biotechnology built on the sticky bonding of proteins was truly a language from another dimension.
She glanced at the clock, then hurriedly slipped out of her clothes.
"My lady, this way please."
Emma, who had volunteered for the posting in Korea, took her hand and pulled her along, well used to the routine.
"Make me as dazzling as possible."
Emma nodded with a solemn face.
"Just leave it to me."
She poured all her heart into dressing Cecilia up.
A green gown, one that could easily have looked tacky, was draped over her body, and it created the illusion of a noble goddess stepping out from a forest.
Her long neck, sharp collarbones, and the chestnut hair flowing all the way down her back rippled like silk. Cecilia gripped her waist and frowned.
"Isn't this too tight?"
"This is just right. My lady, you really are worth every bit of the effort!"
Emma exclaimed in admiration as she fastened on the accessories. Finally, once the handmade stiletto heels were on, all the preparations were complete.
Morris, who had been waiting for her, opened the car door at exactly the right moment.
"Whoever it is, I won't forget them."
Cecilia ground her teeth. It was two and a half hours by car to Seoul. Normally she would have declined. But there was a name on the guest list that should not have been there.
When she'd asked Seo-ha about it, an innocent answer had come back.
"They asked me to explain how Utopia works. They said a lot of influential people would be attending... and there's the matter of the lab's budget, so as director I have to give it my all!"
Seo-ha had clenched his fist.
A party to celebrate the selection of the cipher standard. The lineup of attendees was dazzling, too. As if anyone would call him to a gathering like that just to have him explain some math.
"You..."
She didn't need to see it to know exactly how it would go.
Zero experience in high society.
Seo-ha would be in no different a position than a single rabbit tossed among beasts of prey. That was the reason she had hurried to decide to attend the party.
The car was crossing a bridge over the Han River. Beyond the window, the Seoul night streamed past.
"Allow me to brief you on tonight's gathering."
Morris spoke while keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road ahead.
"The host is Sunyoung Group, second in Korea's business rankings. But there are lobbyists and a Silicon Valley company mixed in. There are also members of the National Assembly's Science and Technology Committee."
"Hmph! So it won't be a simple celebration, then."
"Correct. Sunyoung Group's line of succession is in disarray right now. Their flagship affiliate is on the information and communications side, so they'll be eager to produce results."
"And the American side?"
"Skyline. They were a powerhouse in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, but their stock price plunged sharply after the RSA cipher was cracked."
"Their likely aim?"
"Naturally, it'll be an attempt to sound out how they might apply Utopia to their business."
"I have a feeling their real aim is recruitment, though?"
"That..."
Morris paused for a moment.
"Why?"
"...Sunyoung Group's youngest daughter will be attending the party. She's studying at Harvard, apparently, and returned to Korea on short notice. They say she's a remarkably gifted young woman, exceptional in both beauty and intellect."
Cecilia narrowed her eyes.
"Don't tell me it's a matchmaking scheme?"
"I'm inclined to guess it's closer to a honey trap. The entire telecommunications industry is on emergency footing right now. If they can bring Director Yu into the family..."
"From their standpoint, that would be an ideal outcome."
The car came to a stop.
A grand building at the foot of a mountain, once used as a presidential residence. Luxury vehicles were lined up in front of it. Staff moved busily about, receiving the guests.
Cecilia stepped slowly out of the car. The cold air brushed against the nape of her neck.
The gazes of many people fixed on her. But Cecilia did not turn her head. If her eyes met theirs, she would have to greet them. Tonight, she didn't have even that much room to spare in her heart.
'Why does this bother me so much?'
She hated that someone was using Seo-ha.
She hated the ones trying to put a price tag on his purity, his devotion to truth.
If she could, she wanted to pull him out of this place. That was her honest feeling.
When she asked the staff member at the entrance, she learned that Seo-ha had already arrived quite some time ago.
'That's odd.'
The hall was abnormally quiet. Glancing to the side, she saw the musicians setting down their instruments with troubled expressions.
In her experience with high society, when something like this happened at a party, it was usually one of two things.
Either someone with a status commanding enough to silence everyone had appeared, or something so bewildering had occurred that no one could even speak of it.
'Don't tell me...'
Her heart was in a hurry.
Cecilia's steps quickened.
Click, click.
The sound of her heels rang out unusually loud through the hall.
People were crowded together in one spot. Instinctively, she headed toward it.
She saw familiar faces.
People she had studied as figures to watch in Korean politics and business. Ministers and ministry officials, and foreigners who looked like they'd come from Silicon Valley. And in the spot closest to him were the chairman of Sunyoung Group and a woman who appeared to be his youngest daughter.
'Huh?'
Cecilia stopped in her tracks.
The expressions on people's faces were strange. Faces that looked utterly dumbfounded. From among them, a familiar voice reached her.
"...Inside Utopia, the curvature of space changes according to the wave function of the primes. At first glance you might think it's an incredibly heavy cipher, but in fact it isn't. If you use ST Compression... Ah! I should explain ST Compression first."
There was Seo-ha, tuxedo jacket off and sleeves rolled up.
There was a whiteboard and marker, from goodness knows where. His eyes shining, he was passionately explaining the principles of Utopia to his audience.
"W-wait a moment!"
Someone who looked like a business figure raised a hand hurriedly, his face gone pale.
But Seo-ha did not stop.
"Oh? Was that a little difficult this time too? I'll do it again. I can break it down and make it simple!"
A smile spread across Cecilia's lips.
He truly was giving his all to his duty as director in this very place.
*****
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