“Good morning, Seoha!”
Bread, who ran the fruit shop, lightly tossed an apple toward Seoha.
Thwack!
“Thanks!”
Seoha caught it deftly as he rode past on his bicycle.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to school, but most of the students here got around by bike. Seoha, too, had been gifted an old bicycle by a researcher leaving MIT.
It had only been a month since they had come to America,
but Seoha’s family was adjusting smoothly to life in the States.
* * *
The house MIT provided was a small townhouse with three bedrooms.
It was a two-story wooden house of the sort commonly seen in America, with a garden overgrown with grass in front of the entrance.
When Seoeun saw the lawn, she kicked off her shoes like the country girl she was and ran straight into it.
“Mom! The ground is so soft!”
Miyeong smiled and filmed the scene on her phone.
The living room was not large, but it got plenty of sunlight, and in the kitchen there was a walnut dining table for four.
The entire interior was finished in wood, so when one touched it, it had a warm feel.
“Seoha should use this room.”
Cheolho opened the door to the room at the end of the second floor.
It was a room with a desk, a bed, and a small built-in closet. When the window was opened, the faint scent of river water drifted in from afar.
“This is my room!”
Seoeun ran into the room right next door and flung the curtains wide open.
Light poured into the room. There was a garden below the window, making it a room Seoeun instantly fell in love with.
More than anything else, the couple was happy to have a garden.
Cheolho finished organizing the luggage, then immediately put on gloves and began digging with a shovel.
Seeing that, Miyeong picked up a hand hoe and sat down beside him.
“Should we plant something here? Lettuce or chili peppers would probably do well.”
“No matter where you go, you end up making a field.”
Cheolho laughed as he pulled up weeds.
In one corner of the garden was a small patch of soil, where some herbs remained, seemingly planted and left behind by the previous tenant.
Miyeong plucked a leaf and tasted it.
“It’s basil and mint. I was worried a vegetable garden might be illegal, but I guess it’s fine.”
“It smells good. Let’s plant chili peppers and perilla leaves over there. Green onions and lettuce should suit the weather too.”
Seoha watched the two of them working through the window.
Seeing his parents smile made his heavy heart feel just a little lighter.
* * *
On the day the internet was installed, Seoha opened his laptop for the first time.
‘Hm?’
There was an email from the registrar’s office.
[Register your Kerberos account.]
“It’s finally here.”
Kerberos was a personal authentication account that every MIT student or researcher had to be issued.
Email, course registration, data cloud services, building access, and even administrative procedures on campus were all managed through this account.
It was a network authentication system independently developed by MIT, and countless institutions and research centers had supposedly designed their security systems based on it.
A digital key far more powerful and versatile than a student ID—receiving it made it finally feel real that he had come to MIT.
“To think it’s called Kerberos...”
The hellhound of the underworld was, astonishingly, the official name of this system.
It was likely an expression of confidence that they would never allow unauthorized users in.
Tap, tap.
‘Seoha_Yoo’
Once he chose an ID, the authentication process proceeded quickly.
‘Registration Complete’
A smile appeared on his face.
With this, Seoha had officially become a member of MIT.
* * *
On the day of freshman orientation, Killian Court at the center of campus was packed with people from morning.
Welcome banners hung beneath the enormous dome, and clusters of red and white balloons had been tied between the buildings on either side.
“What are we, high schoolers...?”
A student standing beside Seoha grumbled.
On the lawn, students from all over the world gathered in small groups and introduced themselves to one another.
Having passed the difficult admissions process, they seemed to have come dressed to the nines, as if to reward themselves for all the hardships of the past years.
And yet, every one of them looked awkward in some way.
There were suits with bow ties, high-top sneakers paired with T-shirts printed with mathematical formulas, laptop bags covered densely in stickers, and even a student who had brought a staff made with a 3D printer.
‘So these are the nerds I’ve only heard about?’
Seoha let out a sigh of relief. At the very least, it seemed unlikely that anyone at this school would criticize him for his fashion sense.
Just then, an unfamiliar voice came from behind him.
“Hmph, losers!”
Seoha turned around.
‘Huh?’
It was a combination utterly out of place here.
A beautiful blonde female student.
Her golden hair shone in the sunlight. Whenever the wind blew, her hair scattered like silk. Her eyes were as clear and gray as ice.
A white blouse, a dark navy cropped jacket, and a black skirt that came down to her knees.
Her outfit was so excessively stylish that she looked as if she had just stepped out of a fashion spread.
The gazes of the surrounding students turned toward her, but as if she did not care at all, she smiled brightly at them.
“What are you staring at? Never seen a smart blonde before?”
‘Scary.’
Seoha quietly shifted away from her.
The seats were organized, and soon the orientation began.
The president’s welcoming speech, a jazz band performance, the student council president’s introduction to the school...
It was a program dull enough to make even Seoha, who had a tolerance for boredom, feel like yawning. Everyone was desperately fighting off sleep.
Just as they were about to form groups and begin the tour, the host who had come up onto the stage tapped the microphone several times.
“What is it?”
“Is it broken?”
“Thank goodness. I thought my ears were going to bleed...”
Students here and there snickered.
At that moment, a masked figure appeared on the screen at the front.
The host’s face turned pale.
The entire screen flashed for an instant, and the MIT logo shattered, changing to a black screen.
Amid a static-laced electronic sound, a distorted voice rang out.
—Hello, self-proclaimed geniuses!
The students began murmuring.
“What is this?”
“Could it be hacking?”
The masked figure appeared in the center of the screen.
—Relax, freshmen. We have come to save you.
The host called somewhere, then shook his head as if appalled. The figure behind the mask pointed a finger at him.
—Student council! You clearly don’t even know what the word “creativity” means.
The same welcoming speech every year, the same band, and you’re even recycling the PPT!
Even those Harvard kids across the river would be more entertaining than you. You nearly killed us. Seriously, that was “attempted murder by boredom.”
““Hahaha!””
The students burst into loud laughter.
“That’s right! It’s way too boring!”
“Hear, hear!”
The masked figure laughed theatrically.
—Kahahahaha! But don’t worry, freshmen. Starting this year, things will be different.
Because we’ve prepared an incredible event for you.
“Who even are you?”
Someone shouted loudly.
—Tsk, tsk!
The masked figure clicked his tongue.
—If you’re curious about something, looking into it yourself is the rule here. Only the first person to arrive will be accepted as a comrade, so keep that in mind!
When the masked figure gestured, the screen changed.
With bright background music, MIT’s mascot, Tim the Beaver, appeared.
The beaver on the screen was innocent and carefree.
On a small log, he wagged his tail while gathering leaves. Then, with his hands and mouth, he carried the collected branches to his nest and diligently built his home.
At that moment, the screen suddenly shook.
Black shadows appeared with sinister laughter.
“Grab him!”
Masked men holding ropes and nets surrounded the beaver.
The beaver scurried away on his short legs, but in the end, he was tied to the log. Tears fell from the beaver’s gentle eyes.
A speech bubble appeared beside him.
「I only wanted to welcome the freshmen.」
The screen changed.
The beaver, suspended from a rope, struggled desperately in midair.
Below him was a huge cauldron that looked as if witches would use it, and inside, some unidentified soup was bubbling away.
—Friends! Don’t you want to save the beaver?
The masked man laughed wickedly.
But the students’ expressions were indifferent.
“What are we, elementary schoolers?”
“Childish.”
“The Halloween event at my taekwondo studio would’ve been more shocking than this.”
The masked man began sweating nervously.
—Where in the world did your humanity go! Don’t... don’t you people have any compassion? If you don’t help, that adorable beaver might turn into soup, you know?
The students booed.
“You can just bring him back with animation.”
“Yeah, it’s just graphics anyway.”
—Even if the first-place prize is a high-end graphics card?
In an instant, the atmosphere changed.
“What did you say?”
“A graphics card?”
The prize appeared on the screen.
It was a box for the latest NTX ■090.
“Is that real?”
“Holy crap!”
—Kahahaha! That’s right. A limited edition, no less. The very thing you can’t possibly get at retail price.
In that instant, Killian Court exploded.
“Let’s save the beaver!”
“How dare they mess with Tim the Beaver! Unforgivable!”
“Anyone want to party up with me?”
Seoha’s body was trembling.
‘How cruel. How could they do that to such a cute beaver...’
He thought of the stuffed animal Seoeun played with.
The pitiful beaver, opening and closing its mouth as it sent out a rescue signal—Seoha vowed to save it faster than anyone else.
Satisfied by the freshmen’s passionate reaction, the masked man spoke.
—Then I’ll give you a hint.
A math problem was displayed on the screen.
The students sat down on the spot and took out pens and paper. Many opened their laptops as well.
Seoha grasped the intent of the problem in an instant.
‘It’s a problem applying cryptography.’
RSA.
A public-key encryption method developed by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman.
‘There are two public keys, and if N is the product of two primes, you can factor it and find the inverse of E.’
Seoha opened the pamphlet in his hand and ran his finger across the map.
‘MIT building numbering system.’
Every building on this campus had a number instead of a name. Simply because it was faster and more efficient.
The answer to the problem was 4312.
Building 4 was the physics department building.
After confirming the building’s location, Seoha immediately left his seat.
* * *
Hackers were gathered inside a room.
A server attached to one wall blinked ceaselessly, emitting blue light.
Half-eaten pizza lay scattered across the table.
“I wonder if there’ll be anyone useful this year.”
A man with short hair wearing a hoodie spoke.
He was Cypher Fox, a programmer who had placed first in last year’s campus hacking competition.
“It’d be nice if someone made it all the way here.”
The woman who answered was Entropy, wearing blue headphones around her neck,
a talented student who had won the national college artificial intelligence competition multiple times in a row.
“That’s why we even put up a prize. Tch! Those clever little bastards. They should’ve just saved the beaver quietly.”
The man grumbled as he took off his mask.
An astonishingly handsome face appeared. He was Root, the team’s systems engineer.
“I told you it wouldn’t work, didn’t I? Back in our day, people ran off to save a kitten, but kids these days are different. Their emotions are all dried up.”
“Is it the kids’ fault they care more about credentials than empathy?”
Entropy and Root bickered.
On the monitor, a map of the campus was displayed, with students marked as red dots moving across it. It was thanks to Spectra, the real-time tracking system they had developed.
Sensors planted throughout the campus displayed the students’ movements on the map like coordinates.
“Oh! One of them is fast.”
“You’re right. Did they solve it already? It hasn’t even been three minutes.”
“The first problem is easy. We’ll have to see if they can make it all the way here.”
Entropy murmured as she looked at the screen.
“I hope someone insanely good at math came.”
The reason they had spent a fortune preparing even a bait prize was to find the final piece that would help complete their project.