“...Damian.”
Victor called to him in a small voice from beside him. His face was sunk in utter confusion and despair.
Damian did not answer.
He was feeling something very strange.
‘Why am I not angry?’
Years of effort had collapsed overnight. It would have been normal to feel rage, or at least pain.
But what he actually felt was something entirely different.
Damian stared blankly up at the podium. Seoha was explaining Utopia. At first, he had tried to view it through the eyes of a cryptographer.
What was its structure? Where were its vulnerabilities? What problems could arise in the implementation environment?
It was a habit ingrained in him over many years. But each time Seoha moved to the next screen, the questions Damian had thought of were answered one by one and vanished.
‘It’s on a different level.’
How long it would take to break, what method was used to hide the seed—this was not a matter of that level.
The old proposition of physics that observation changes the object being observed. Seoha had ultimately implemented it mathematically. The very act of an attacker peering into the space changed that space into an entirely different place.
Until now, all cryptography had been a game of buying time.
Enduring until the attacker gave up. The history of cryptography was the history of gradually lengthening that time of endurance.
But today, the rules of a game that had continued for hundreds of years had changed. By a single genius.
“Victor. Do you understand how incredible that cipher is?”
“Is that what matters? We’re ruined!”
Looking at the despairing Victor, Damian gave a faint smile. From today on, cryptography would be divided into before and after Utopia.
“But the world has become safer.”
Crack—
That ticklish sensation he had felt for some time. Damian quietly closed his eyes.
Light poured out from inside the shattered shell.
The inside of his eyelids grew bright. Damian did not open his eyes. He was afraid this feeling would disappear.
The light began to take shape. It was a bird.
Its folded wings spread. Very slowly. As though something that had been trapped inside a shell for a very long time had encountered a wide-open space for the first time, the more its wings unfolded, the wider the light spread.
And the bird flew.
Beyond walls and boundaries, high into the sky.
“Ah...”
Damian stared at it blankly.
When he opened his eyes, what he saw was Utopia. Within the surging multidimensional space, a bird was flying.
“So the bird wasn’t me.”
Only then did Damian realize. The sturdy egg he had harbored had not existed to become complete in itself. It had been the soil that had to exist for the bird called Utopia to hatch.
Before that cruel and beautiful providence—the paradox that the egg he had created had to break for the bird to fly—Damian felt true freedom for the first time in his life.
Clap, clap, clap—
A wave of applause echoed through the hall.
The generals who had been sitting solemnly rose from their seats and applauded enthusiastically. The White House aides and Wall Street magnates, who had worn grave expressions before the judging, were now all smiling warmly.
“That concludes my presentation.”
Seoha lifted his head on the podium. Not the slightest trace of a victor’s arrogance could be found on his face. There was only the relief of having solved a problem.
His eyes met Damian’s.
Seoha walked toward him and bowed deeply. Damian felt as though he understood the meaning of that bow. Tears sprang to his eyes.
He looked at Seoha and said,
“If Kyber had to break for Utopia to soar, then I will gladly accept that role.”
Seoha smiled shyly and clasped Damian’s hand.
Herbert, the head of NIST, slowly walked to the center of the podium. He folded the score sheet he was holding and put it in his pocket. Scores or rankings had lost all meaning today. He gripped the microphone firmly and said,
“This committee intends to make a grave decision.”
The audience seated in the hall straightened their backs.
“As of this moment, NIST will form an emergency standardization task force for Utopia. Formal procedures are not what matter now. Ordinarily, this would take years, but based on the theory proven today, we will complete the review of implementation stability as quickly as possible.”
It was an unprecedented measure.
Gasps burst out across the hall. The hands of the reporters covering the event grew busy. A few minutes later, breaking news began to appear from major media outlets.
[The New Standard in Cryptography: Utopia]
[The Terror of the SS Algorithm Is Over. The Unbreakable Cipher Utopia—Is the Era of Absolute Security Beginning?]
[Expectations of Market Stabilization. American Bank and Major Banking Networks Review Early Adoption of Utopia]
A reporter delivered the news with an excited expression.
“An unbelievable event has just taken place at NIST headquarters in Maryland. Utopia, a cipher designed by MIT’s genius mathematician Yu Seoha, has overwhelmed all competitors and been selected as the sole standard. Director Herbert stated that this was, above all else, a decision prioritizing humanity’s safety.”
└Can we finally breathe now? I thought I was going insane because I couldn’t access my banking app.
└Who knows? That might get cracked too.
└They say that’s not it. Apparently the method is different or something?
└Seoha must have taken care of it properly. Isn’t that kid seriously an alien?
└Our math teacher says Seoha has to be someone from the future. He’s just releasing the answers to problems solved a thousand years from now one by one, pretending he solved them himself.
└My coins! Am I finally getting them back?
└You think that’s possible? The terrorists probably already swallowed them up as retirement funds.
└What the hell are the police doing? They seriously can’t catch those bastards?
└They say that algorithm hacks tracking too.
The basics of tracking were determining who sent data, from where, and to where. However, because the SS algorithm attacked the encryption system itself, they could not be caught through existing secure communication networks.
The agencies were putting every effort into catching them, but they had yet to find a solution.
* * *
After the event ended, Seoha was overwhelmed.
As soon as he came down from the podium, dozens of people surrounded him. From every direction, they offered handshakes and introduced themselves.
“Wall Street Journal. Could we have just one comment on the impact Utopia will have on financial security?”
“Seoha! We’re from Google’s technical team. We’d like to discuss Utopia’s implementation environment!”
“Se-Seoha! Could you please attend the next cryptography conference? If you wish, we’d even be willing to host it in Korea!”
Agents from various governments and heavyweights from Silicon Valley were also watching for any opportunity to approach him.
Minister Lee Hyeonseok, who had intended to coordinate Seoha’s return schedule, awkwardly stepped back. He looked at Jiyun and said with a pleased expression,
“I’m glad I took your words to heart, Professor. If I had made some absurd offer, our relationship with Mr. Yu wouldn’t be what it is now.”
“Seoha is simply a mathematician who wants to see the world more clearly. I didn’t expect the government to accept that either.”
The minister laughed with a bitter expression.
“Hahaha! If Seoha had, by some chance, chosen to naturalize, it would have been difficult to withstand the criticism. You can understand this as an achievement that came out of that process.”
Jiyun smiled warmly.
“The fact that you accomplished something great remains unchanged, Minister. Thanks to you, Korea will enjoy great benefits going forward.”
“I didn’t think that time would come this quickly.”
The two of them looked at Seoha, surrounded by the crowd in the distance. With her gaze fixed on Seoha, Jiyun warned him.
“But Minister, don’t forget.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seoha can leave at any time. The government no longer even has a means to negotiate, does it?”
The minister’s expression stiffened.
“I will make absolutely sure Mr. Yu never feels disappointed.”
Seoha, having pushed his way through the crowd, looked around. Then, after spotting someone, he went straight toward him.
Murphy spoke to him with a surprised expression.
“Do you have business with me?”
“Yes, there’s something I’d like to tell you. Just the two of us.”
A thin build, grayish hair, and the numb eyes peculiar to someone who had worked in agencies for many years. Murphy shrugged.
“Very well.”
* * *
When they came out the rear entrance of the NIST building, three black SUVs were waiting in a line.
As Seoha approached, an agent opened the rear door.
Thud—
When the door closed, the noise from outside was completely cut off.
Murphy sat beside him with his arms crossed.
‘What is he thinking?’
Seoha had suddenly asked about the investigation into the cyberterrorism. When asked why, he had answered like this.
“I think I can help.”
Murphy snorted.
The FBI was currently in charge of the investigation. More than five hundred personnel had been deployed—the largest scale in history for a cyberterrorism task force. Supercomputers and all sorts of cutting-edge equipment had been brought in. On top of that, they had intelligence support from the NSA and the CIA. No matter how smart he was, this was not a place for a civilian to interfere.
‘And a foreigner, at that.’
But there was a reason Murphy had not rejected Seoha’s proposal.
A month had passed since the terror attack, yet the investigative authorities still had not caught so much as a trace of the culprits.
One side had radar, while the other had to search with the naked eye. Using an algorithm a generation ahead was an unfairness of that magnitude.
Once the car passed through Baltimore and New Jersey, the air changed. Across the river, the silhouette of Manhattan appeared faintly.
“Hm?”
The agent driving tilted his head.
“What is it?”
“The road conditions are unusually good today. We’re lucky.”
At Murphy’s question, he answered while looking in the rearview mirror.
After Oracle was introduced, traffic congestion had eased considerably, but New York was a city with an enormous number of cars and people to begin with. Moreover, the bottleneck at the Lincoln Tunnel, the gateway from the outskirts, was one of New York’s chronic ailments.
Vroom—
Feeling better, the agent stepped on the accelerator with satisfaction.
The car stopped at Federal Plaza in southern Manhattan, the FBI New York Field Office. Among the fifty-six FBI offices in the United States, it was the largest.
“Follow me.”
Murphy led the way.
It was an entrance separately prepared on the side of the building. The guard checked Murphy’s badge and saluted. His eyes swept over Seoha once.
“Consultant.”
The guard nodded and held out a temporary pass. Seoha took it and hung it around his neck.
Once they entered, there was a security checkpoint. Seoha took off his coat and placed it on the tray. His wallet, pen, cellphone, and the laptop computer in his bag.
When they arrived on the twenty-third floor, an area with several offices appeared.
“Please wait here for a moment.”
Inside a room that resembled an interrogation room.
As though the consultation was not yet finished, Murphy looked at his watch and spoke.
Nod.
Seoha entered the room and sat down in a chair. A surveillance camera was visible in the corner of the ceiling. It was a simple space with only a table and chairs.
Slide.
Seoha took a laptop out of his bag and opened it.
“Daisy.”
[It has been a while since you called me, Master. The location confirmed by GPS is New York. Distance from Oracle: 1.3 kilometers.]
Seoha had preserved Daisy, Oracle’s prototype model.
Her main duties were serving as Seoha’s schedule management secretary, as well as analyzing the nutritional components of his meals or telling him the arrival times of buses and subways.
“External network connection?”
[It is blocked. The current device is completely offline.]
“There’s something I need to do. I might need Oracle’s help.”
The avatar of Daisy, a beautiful white-haired woman, made an openly displeased expression.
[Hiiing. I don’t want to be connected to something like that signal controller.]
Perhaps because she often exchanged jokes with Seoha, Daisy’s language model had changed somehow from the past.