The Cipher by John C. Ford Page B

paranoid that he’d rigged the closure on it with an actual combination lock. His high school locker had probably looked like Fort Knox.
    â€œSo what’s that million-dollar problem you’re trying to figure out, anyway?”
    Ben stared at him. “You really want to know?”
    â€œWhy, you don’t think I’m smart enough to get it?” Actually, Smiles knew he wouldn’t be. “Just dumb it down a little. Gimme the highlights.”
    Ben inhaled. “It’s called the Riemann Hypothesis.”
    Smiles flew by an SUV, focusing tight on Ben’s words so he wouldn’t get lost.
    â€œProbably the biggest mystery in math,” Ben said, “is the pattern behind prime numbers. No one can figure it out. You know what prime numbers are, right?”
    â€œYou better break it down for me, Einstein.” Smiles might have been more embarrassed about his lack of knowledge if Ben hadn’t woken him up before sunrise.
    Ben flicked off the stereo. “Okay, well, most numbers are the product of at least two other numbers. Like 21. You multiply 3 times 7 and get 21, right?”
    â€œRight.” Smiles was all over that one.
    â€œBut the number 7, that’s a prime number. ’Cause you can’t multiply two other numbers to get 7. Except 7 and 1, and 1 doesn’t count.”
    â€œOkay.” Smiles was totally getting this.
    â€œSome prime numbers are huge, with, like, a hundred and fifty digits in them, but they occur more rarely the higher you go. And they don’t occur in any pattern. Or, at least, any pattern that anyone’s figured out in the whole history of math. Which is weird, because
everything
in math has a pattern.”
    â€œThat’s the problem, figuring out the pattern? They’ll give you a million dollars for that?”
    â€œMore or less.” Ben sounded offended. “It’s only the holy grail of math problems. Some of the best mathematicians have spent their whole lives trying to figure it out, and no one’s gotten it.”
    â€œWhy do they call it the Rainman whatever?”
    â€œThe Riemann Hypothesis. It’s named after this guy, Bernhard Riemann, who actually did a lot of the work behind Einstein’s general theory of relativity.” Ben waited a beat, like he expected Smiles to break out into applause for the great Mr. Riemann. “Anyway, he had this hypothesis about how it works . . .”
    Ben was getting excited talking about this. His voice was rising and he was rocking back and forth in his seat. Smiles had seen him do the rocking thing in his apartment—one of those little tip-offs, like the pants, that things were a bit off with the kid.
    â€œNo one’s been able to prove or disprove Riemann’s hypothesis, though,” Ben went on. “It has to do with zeta functions, which are a little complica—”
    â€œYeah, better skip the zeta functions.”
    Now that he’d gotten Ben all wound up, Smiles had a sudden urge to shut down the conversation. They were treading close to the topic of Alyce Systems. All this talk about prime numbers was jogging his memory, and he was sure now that his dad’s discovery—the one that had revolutionized computer encryption—was based on prime numbers, too. Ben probably knew all about it.
    Smiles didn’t want to ask him, though, because if the conversation went in that direction Smiles was headed straight for the black hole. He was out for a good time at Fox Creek, not a reminder of his ailing father and how he’d never measure up. He tugged the steering wheel to the right, barely making the off-ramp. A horn blared behind them.
    Ben white-knuckled the armrest. “What was that?”
    â€œI need some Taco Bell,” Smiles grumbled.

    The rest of the drive felt like work. Traffic snarled as the morning wore on, and Ben wasn’t providing much in the way of company, unless spraying the