Translator: Dreamscribe
Ben solved differential calculus at the age of four.
His parents, both physics researchers, were so excited that they cleared every Lego block out of his room. In their place came university-level math textbooks and a whiteboard.
"Hmm."
Theo leaned back in his chair, staring intently into Benjamin's eyes.
Eyes that radiated arrogance yet betrayed a deep deficiency. Theo knew this kind of person well. They were the marks of isolation that geniuses, who had spent their lives sneering at the world, inevitably ran into.
Just looking at the resume, he could roughly guess what had happened. Theo decided to confirm it.
"Dr. Simmons. Quite a flashy resume. Earning a Ph.D. at fifteen, and in quantum physics, of all things, one of the hardest fields out there. This record might not be broken even after a hundred years."
Ben gave a small nod, as if it were only natural.
"But for the five years since, you haven't produced any meaningful results. Your name doesn't appear on any noteworthy research, and your papers are mediocre at best.
What I'm most curious about is this. Why have you switched labs three times?"
Ben's shoulders twitched.
Around the age of fifteen, he had been intolerably arrogant and on edge.
Back then, Ben had thought of collaboration as a desperate measure that low-IQ researchers resorted to in order to compensate for each other's inadequacies.
"They couldn't keep up with my pace. Meetings were just garbage time wasted on getting my idiotic colleagues to understand the conclusions I'd already reached.
In the end, I had no choice but to do everything alone. After about a year, my desk had vanished."
Ngh...
Theo pressed a hand to his forehead.
He had no idea where to even begin pointing things out.
"And the second one?"
He decided to exercise some patience.
"The second lab was even more of a spectacle. They were peddling my name to investors, going on and on about how promising their research was. A mascot role, can you believe it? Heheheh!
I had to show those corrupt creatures that justice was still alive in this world. At their pitch meeting, I cleanly proved just how garbage the data they'd prepared was."
A genius on display.
Not an uncommon occurrence in academia. Theo himself had been through something similar.
"Tell me about the last place you were at."
"Hmm. Now there, something truly spectacular happened. My ideas were stolen."
A smile spread across his face, as though it had been a delightful experience. Theo's puzzlement was brief, as Ben launched into the tale like he was recounting some heroic adventure.
"A professor with quite the name in academia took the draft of my research, then bumped me down to third author. When I protested, he said this to me."
He cleared his throat and mimicked a solemn voice.
"Ben, you're still young, and being in the public eye could be poisonous to you. Please understand that this is a measure to protect you."
Theo's face twisted. Classic textbook power-based extortion.
"So did you bring justice down on him too?"
"Tsk tsk!"
He held up his index finger and waved it side to side.
"I never got the chance. He hid my existence thoroughly. So I planted an elaborate time bomb in the key formula at the heart of the paper. It was fine at first, but later it would generate a contradiction and collapse.
In the end, the paper was retracted and the professor was thoroughly humiliated. Of course, I got kicked out of the lab too. Honestly, I have nowhere left to go now. The man had quite the network."
Ben gave a self-deprecating smile.
To his parents, he was a maladjusted child who couldn't produce results; in academia, he was branded a dangerous element who challenged authority. For five years, he had been utterly alone.
Flap.
The resume Benjamin had submitted came with a QR code linking to data from his research at his previous labs.
Click.
"Wow!"
The moment Theo scanned the code with his phone, his mouth fell open.
The data sheets were impeccably organized. Every variable was sorted according to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standards, and each formula was hyperlinked, taking him straight to the paper page.
Gulp.
Theo swallowed and composed his expression.
"You've mostly been doing research alone, so does that mean you handled all the administrative work, budgeting, and data archiving yourself?"
Ben nodded.
"I wrote a macro that automatically classifies receipts when scanned. Administration is just another kind of algorithm. Things like monthly reports, once you build an automated template and feed in the data, are done in fifteen minutes."
"Federal grant settlement paperwork too? Even those grueling audits?"
He looked at Theo as if to ask what on earth he was talking about.
"Is that hard? You just analyze the guidelines and normalize the input values. It infuriates me to see people groan over that simple task for an entire month.
What do agencies hate more than anything? Opacity, right? I linked GPS tags and purchase-purpose codes to every single expenditure record. Thanks to that, I haven't received a single document supplementation request in the last five years."
In Theo's mind, Ben's position shifted.
From a personality-disordered high-IQ brat to a human macro who could finish all the busywork with a single click.
During last year's audit season, Theo had once asked Su-jeong to organize the receipts.
And Su-jeong had dumped the pile of receipts onto Theo's desk and said,
"Last quarter's receipts."
"Don't tell me you didn't even sort them?"
"Do you take me for a fool?"
Her face brimmed with confidence.
Click.
With skeptical eyes, he clicked into the folder Su-jeong had shared.
-Coffee
-Coffee
-Lunch
-Plane ticket
-Late-night snack
-Equipment
-Snacks
-Supplies
-Coffee
Her mathematical talent had been of absolutely no use when it came to sorting and processing receipts.
Cecilia was even worse.
Born with maids and butlers at her disposal, her administrative ability was negative itself. Having grown obsessed with cup ramen, donuts, and chocolate bars, which she'd experienced for the first time at the lab, her desk was in nothing short of catastrophic shape.
Cecilia's research folders had hundreds of cute cat pictures from the internet mixed in with the data. The corporate card had once gone missing for ages, only to be found tucked into a book she'd been reading like a bookmark.
Sri was the very embodiment of system maintenance, but he couldn't throw anything away.
He kept squirreling parts that were supposed to be discarded into the storage room, and now he was even piling them up on his desk. The mysterious boxes bore labels only he could decipher.
-Cable No. 4
-Use later
-Need someday
-Spare Parts No. 3
-Do not throw out
Theo pressed his temples firmly.
Seo-ha had said he wanted to respect everyone's individual style. But the reality was that Seo-ha was nothing more than a naive type who only knew math.
The four of them shared one thing in common: zero experience with social life. Theo felt as though he'd become a kindergarten nanny.
But then...
'Found him! The unicorn who'll extend my lifespan!'
"Dr. Simmons."
He spoke with a deliberately serious expression.
"I believe you're exactly the kind of talent our team needs. When can you start?"
Ben's eyes widened.
"...Are you serious?"
The joy was momentary. A cold cynicism spread across his face.
"Theodore. I'm not a fool. I know better than anyone that I'm not someone most labs would welcome.
And yet you say you need me? Do you intend to exploit me too in the end?"
Caught.
His real motive had nearly slipped through.
Theo desperately maintained a solemn expression.
"Doctor, we are not that kind of low-class group. You can tell just by looking at the results our team has produced so far, can't you?"
The wariness in Ben's attitude eased a little.
"You won't steal my ideas?"
"We won't. Seo-ha is extremely averse to monopolizing credit. You can see that just from the fact that my initials are in ST Compression."
"I refuse to attend pointless meetings."
"If you're brilliant enough that meetings aren't necessary, that's actually welcome. Though I'm not sure such a human exists on this planet."
"Hmph! Congratulations. You're about to witness one for the first time. I refuse the mascot role too."
"You're not honestly thinking your name carries more weight than Seo-ha's, are you?"
A fair point.
"And I won't do busywork that isn't mine. I want to focus solely on research."
Theo, who had been answering without hesitation, brought a hand to his chin and fell into thought.
Ben let out a snort, as if he'd seen this coming. Nothing more to discuss. As he was about to rise from his seat, Theo raised a hand to stop him.
"Doctor. Our team doesn't have separate personnel for chores. Even cleaning staff aren't allowed access to the lab. We've had incidents where foreign spies tried to steal materials."
They had said security was airtight back then too, but no one had imagined the spies would even go through the trash. After that, Team APEX Lab's security level was raised by two more grades.
"And so?"
"What I'm saying is that someone absolutely has to do the paperwork. From an efficiency standpoint, who do you think it should be?"
"Naturally, the person who contributes least to the team. It may sound cruel, but it's only right that the relatively lower-IQ person handles the busywork."
Snap!
Theo snapped his fingers as if to say, exactly.
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Then you'd have no objections to that principle, would you, Doctor?"
"As long as the process is fair, I don't mind. Even if the heavens split in two, it's never going to be me."
Sliiide.
"Then please sign here."
Theo slid the prepared contract toward him. Seo-ha trusted Theo enough to leave the entirety of recruitment in his hands.
The points the two of them had discussed were freshly added to the contract. Ben examined the document meticulously, then briskly signed his name.
* * *
Slap slap!
Ben patted his cheeks with both hands as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. This was a lab on a completely different level from anywhere he'd been before.
"Yes!"
After splashing his face, he roughly swept back his wet hair. For the first time in a long while, his eyes in the mirror held a spark of life.
After five years of patience, the chance to finally unleash his genius had arrived.
He kicked open the bathroom door and headed for the lab.
Theo had gathered the team members and was introducing Ben.
"Alright, everyone, listen up! I told you yesterday, right? Starting today, Dr. Benjamin Simmons will be working with us."
Clap clap clap!
'Good people.'
Led by Seo-ha, everyone wore the brightest of expressions.
At the unexpected warm welcome, the tension in Ben's face loosened.
"Now then, we're going to decide who'll be in charge of the team's busywork."
"Busywork?"
Su-jeong tilted her head while sipping her iced Americano. Cecilia, watching her, scrunched up her face as if it were some kind of grotesque beverage.
"It's something Dr. Simmons proposed: the 'lowest-IQ' person on this team will handle all the paperwork for this quarter."
Lowest-IQ....
The team's eyes widened at Theo's uncharacteristically harsh choice of words.
Cecilia froze mid-bite of her donut and stared at him. Then, spotting Ben standing there with his arms crossed and a smug smile on his face, she nodded.
Slurp.
"This is the first time I've felt fired up since the LOGIA Ranking Match."
Su-jeong set her empty cup down on the desk.
Seo-ha had a thoughtful expression on his face. Ben added, almost as if making excuses,
"It's only natural. The intellectually gifted devote themselves to productive work; this has been the basic principle behind humanity's progress over the past several dozen centuries."
Theo called out to Seo-ha.
"Let's have Seo-ha set the problem. Make sure it has good discriminating power."
Seo-ha looked at Theo and let out a small sigh.
This was the result of leaving the work to Theo and turning a blind eye for so long. Since Theo had vouched that Benjamin's potential was genuine, knocking down Ben's spirit a notch wouldn't be a bad thing.
"What's the category? Mental arithmetic? Chess?"
Ben's voice rose at the thought that an opportunity to demonstrate his ability had come early.
Seo-ha's gaze stopped on the morning newspaper that had come in at dawn.
"How about Sudoku?"
Ben gave him a puzzled look. Then, as if it made no difference, he shrugged.
"If that's what you'd like. For your reference, I graduated from Sudoku at age five."
In contrast to his confidence, every member of APEX wore a tense expression.
Gulp.
'Please, just keep your mouth shut.'
'You idiot! There's no way Seo-ha would set an ordinary Sudoku puzzle!'
'With Seo-ha out of the running, first place is mine for sure!'
'I have to manage the servers too. Won't they let me sit this out?'
Seo-ha walked to the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk.
Scratch scratch.
"I'll go with the standard 9x9 grid."
A puzzle of numbers took shape in Seo-ha's mind.
The minimum number of clues required for a Sudoku to have a unique solution is seventeen. Seo-ha designed the logical chain needed to confirm a single number to span more than ten steps.
It was a structure where blind brute-force substitution would only reveal the error after dozens of steps in.
"Done. You should still be able to solve it within twenty minutes, right?"
Seo-ha smiled and stepped back.
The four existing team members spread out their papers and threw themselves at the puzzle with the most serious expressions imaginable. Glancing at them, the corner of Ben's mouth turned up.
'No use. This is a contest of pure talent.'
He stared at the seventeen numbers on the board and unfurled a virtual grid in his head. Then he began plugging in numbers at a furious pace.
'Hm?'
One minute.
Two minutes.
Ben's relaxed expression slowly began to harden.
He ran X-Wing and Swordfish logic (Sudoku candidate-elimination logic).
Five minutes passed, and beads of sweat formed on Ben's forehead. But he still hadn't filled in a single blank.
*****
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