Chapter 2 - America
Chapter 2 - America
The first morning of life in the USA.
Siwoo was the first to open his eyes.
Outside the window, it was still dark, and the clock pointed to five in the morning.
It was his first day in the US, but strangely, he wasn't tired.
A strange country, strange air, a strange house; all of it felt more like new information to Siwoo than fear.
Siwoo quietly got out of bed, opened the door, and went down to the living room.
The house prepared by the US government was much larger than the house in Busan.
Floors that smelled of wood, large windows, a kitchen with an unfamiliar layout; everything was new.
Siwoo looked around the living room, found a laptop on the table, and turned it on.
"It's fast."
As the internet window opened, Siwoo immediately started searching.
US carrier structures, backbone networks, university network connection methods, government network separation structures, security protocols; the screen scrolled quickly, and Siwoo's eyes moved at that same speed.
For a normal person, this would be content that takes a long time to read, but for Siwoo, it was like a map unfolding.
Lines connected to lines, rules formed, and he could see where things were blocked.
Then, at one moment, Siwoo's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"...This is strange."
There was an inefficient section in some of the US public network structures.
The form where old systems and the latest systems were forcibly attached, packet processing methods, server distribution structures, response speeds, security bottlenecks; everything started being calculated in his head simultaneously.
Just then, a voice was heard from behind.
"What are you doing?"
It was Ethan Lowell, and Siwoo turned his head slightly.
"I was looking at the US network structure."
"...At five in the morning?"
"I woke up early."
Ethan laughed as if sighing, but then his expression stiffened as he looked at the screen.
"...You understand that?"
"Yes."
"To what extent?"
Siwoo pointed to one side of the screen.
"The structure here is inefficient."
"What's inefficient about it?"
"The connection between the previous generation server structure and the latest protocol is strange."
Ethan stared at the screen without a word.
He didn't understand even half of it, but the NSA analysis team had submitted a similar report a few months ago.
An eight-year-old child had found the same problem after scanning it for a few minutes.
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
"...Don't do that from the very first day you arrive in the US."
Siwoo tilted his head.
"Why?"
"Just act like a normal kid."
"I am normal."
Ethan eventually burst into laughter.
As morning brightened, the house turned back into the house in Busan.
Hyejin was boiling soybean paste stew in the kitchen, and Taesik was sitting at the table, staring at his coffee.
"Yeobo."
"Yes?"
"Why is this coffee so bitter?"
"It's coffee, so of course it's bitter."
"Instant coffee mix is better than this."
"You said that yesterday, too."
"It's because it's the same even when I drink it today."
Hyejin sighed, but a smile played on her lips.
At 10 AM, several black vehicles stopped in front of the house, and Taesik stiffened his face as he looked outside through the curtains.
"Who came again?"
Hyejin also tensed up along with him.
"Where are they from today?"
The doorbell rang, and Ethan entered first.
Behind him, a US Department of Education official, an FBI agent, and a white-haired Old Professor followed.
As soon as the Old Professor entered the house, he looked at Siwoo, and there was silence for a few seconds.
"You must be Yoon Siwoo."
"Yes."
"I came from MIT."
At that moment, Hyejin and Taesik's expressions changed.
The two of them knew the name MIT.
One of the most famous engineering schools in the world, a place where geniuses gather.
Taesik awkwardly bowed his waist.
"Ah, yes, nice to meet you."
Hyejin hurriedly brought out water.
"Would you like something?"
The Old Professor shook his head gently.
"It's fine. I came today because I wanted to see Siwoo in person."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
The Old Professor took a bundle of papers out of his bag.
"I saw the report about you."
"It's wrong."
The Old Professor's eyebrows rose slightly.
"What is wrong?"
"If you judge me just by looking at a report, you might be wrong, right?"
Ethan laughed softly beside them, and the Old Professor also looked at Siwoo for a moment before laughing.
"That's why I came to check for myself."
Problems were placed on the table; at first, it was high school-level math.
Siwoo read the problem sheet quickly as soon as he received it, and 5 minutes later, he pushed the sheet away.
"I'm done."
The Old Professor took out the next problem sheet without a word, and Siwoo finished the university-level problems in 10 minutes.
Next was graduate-level, and this time it took a little longer, but he didn't get stuck.
Only the sound of a pencil echoed in the living room.
Hyejin was clenching her hands, and Taesik was watching his son with his mouth shut.
To the two of them, it just looked like the paper was filling up with strange symbols, but the Old Professor's expression was changing.
At first doubt, then surprise, and now it was close to shock.
The Old Professor, having checked the last problem, was speechless for a while, and Ethan asked quietly.
"Professor-nim."
The Old Professor didn't answer, just re-read the solution Siwoo had written.
And he muttered very quietly.
"...I've never seen an approach like this."
"Is it wrong?"
"No, you aren't solving the problems."
"Pardon?"
"You are remaking the problems."
Siwoo didn't understand the meaning of those words.
The Old Professor took a note out of the inside of his bag.
The paper was a bit worn, and when he placed the paper in front of Siwoo, Ethan's expression changed.
"Professor-nim, that is..."
"I know."
The Old Professor said quietly.
"But I have to check."
He looked at Siwoo.
"This is a research problem that hasn't been solved yet. You don't necessarily have to solve it, I just want to know how you see it."
Siwoo looked down at the paper.
Complex formulas and conditions were written on it.
This time, he didn't pick up the pencil right away, he just stared at it.
1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes...
The people in the living room gradually held their breath, and Taesik became anxious.
Did he give the child too difficult a problem?
Hyejin said cautiously.
"Siwoo-ya, if it's hard, you don't have to do it."
"It's okay."
And a moment later, Siwoo opened his mouth.
"The calculation direction here is wrong."
The Old Professor's eyes widened.
"What?"
Siwoo pointed to a line on the paper.
"If you take this condition as the center here, it keeps getting complicated. But this condition isn't the core."
"Then what is the core?"
Siwoo brought a blank sheet of paper and started writing formulas.
The speed at which he wrote the formulas was fast, and he unraveled the complex problem one by one as if untangling a knotted thread.
The Old Professor leaned forward more and more, and his hands trembled slightly.
10 minutes later, Siwoo put down the pencil.
"If you do it like this, it becomes shorter."
The Old Professor read the paper, leaned back in his chair, and let out a deep breath.
"...My god."
Ethan asked quietly.
"How is it?"
The Old Professor looked at Siwoo instead of answering.
"You thought of this just now?"
"Yes."
"Has anyone ever taught you something similar?"
"No."
"Have you seen it in a book?"
"No."
"Then how did you solve it?"
"I saw it."
"You saw it?"
"That's how the problem looks."
The Old Professor was speechless.
He had spent his whole life researching math and engineering, and had seen many students called geniuses, but Yoon Siwoo was different from them.
The Old Professor looked at Taesik and Hyejin.
"You must not send your son to a regular school."
Hyejin's face stiffened.
"Why?"
"If you send him to a regular school, you will ruin the child."
The room went quiet for a moment, and after a while, Taesik asked in a low voice.
"Is it to that extent?"
"Yes."
The Old Professor looked at Siwoo.
"This child is no longer at a stage where he can be compared to his peers. Comparing him to high school students, college students, or even graduate students is meaningless."
Hyejin bit her lip.
"Then what should we do?"
"He needs a world-class research environment. But at the same time..."
The Old Professor paused for a moment.
"He also needs time to live as a child."
Hyejin's eyes wavered.
Everyone who had come to find them until now had only been interested in Siwoo's abilities.
How smart he was, how dangerous, how valuable, but for the first time, someone appeared who said something different.
Hyejin asked quietly.
"Is that possible?"
The Old Professor answered honestly.
"It's difficult."
"......"
"But we can try."
That afternoon, inside a private conference room at MIT.
The Old Professor placed Yoon Siwoo's solution materials on the table, and several professors were gathered in the conference room.
Yoon Siwoo's test results were displayed on the screen, and one professor said as if he couldn't believe it.
"Is this a solution written by an eight-year-old child?"
"I saw it myself."
"What about the possibility of manipulation?"
"None."
"Did he take it from an existing paper..."
"No."
The conference room went quiet, and a young professor asked in a trembling voice.
"Then does that mean this child is ahead of our researchers?"
The Old Professor couldn't answer right away, and only opened his mouth after a long while.
"The expression 'ahead' might even be insufficient."
"Then what should we call it?"
The Old Professor looked at the paper with the formulas Siwoo had left behind.
"...He is standing in a different direction."
A different direction; Yoon Siwoo wasn't a child running the same path faster, but was looking at a completely different path.
Someone said in a low voice.
"We must consider early admission."
Another professor immediately opposed it.
"He is too young. The MIT environment might be too much for the child."
"But a regular school is more dangerous."
"That is true."
A cognitive scientist said cautiously.
"What that child needs is a structure that can provide education and protection at the same time."
The Old Professor nodded.
"That's right. We must not mistake that we are raising that child."
"Then?"
"We must design the surroundings so that the child doesn't collapse."
At that time, Yoon Siwoo was sitting on the living room floor rolling a soccer ball, and Hyejin laughed as she watched her son.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm thinking."
"What are you thinking about?"
Siwoo rolled the soccer ball with his hand.
"I was wondering if it would be fun to play soccer with American kids."
Hyejin burst into laughter for a moment.
While the world's best professors were shocked, the FBI and NSA were planning protection, and MIT was holding meetings, the person himself was thinking about soccer.
Taesik also sat on the sofa and laughed.
"Hey, you are really strange."
"Why?"
"The US is in an uproar because of you, but you're only thinking about playing."
"Soccer is fun."
Taesik was speechless, but soon laughed.
"Yeah, that's true."
Hyejin stroked her son's hair.
"If you make friends, you can play together."
Siwoo paused for a moment.
"Friends..."
Hyejin's heart ached when she saw her son's expression.
"You'll make some in the US."
Siwoo nodded quietly.
"I hope so."
Siwoo was looking at the MIT professor's problem sheet on the desk.
Today was strange. Adults were surprised looking at him, and his parents were worried.
The Old Professor seemed to want to take him to MIT.
Siwoo didn't know exactly what kind of place MIT was yet, but seeing the Old Professor, he liked him.
Maybe there were people there who could communicate with him.