by Hai Huang 黃海
After many years of effort, he finally became one of the world’s most famous science fiction writers. He had always been a completely self-confident workaholic, not having a modest bone in his body. But lately, he found that every plot he wanted to write was already contained in the SF file in his computer. His bones began to feel a bit soft.
“Oh please! That idea has been used before, stupid!” The computer scolded him in a direct way, but still didn’t forget to comfort him a little. “But it’s fine with me if you want to use it once again. The Time Machine, for example, was invented by H. G. Wells, but it has been used countless times in science fiction stories and films like the series movies Back to the Future and Terminator. Even though the idea is a little worn, if you add a novel twist, it’s like refilling good old wine in a new bottle.”
“Forget it! I’ve slowed half a beat!” he said angrily, as if being clubbed by a stick. Then he gave up his original plan and tried to think out a new one.
In the past half century, he had always been a “writing Machine” — working almost twelve hours every day, seven days a week and fifty-two weeks a year. He was already 72 and had authored nearly five hundred books on different fields of science ranging from astronomy to geography, as well as on literature, religion, history, and many pieces of fiction. He had written about everything, but his favorite was science fiction. When he composed science fiction stories, he would feel comfortable and satisfied – while voyaging among the stars and going out of and back into the world, there was nothing he could not do. All his life he had never liked to travel and had no need to do it; voyaging by means of science fiction was his most enjoyable habit. Naturally when he was writing he would experience the pleasure of the imaginary trip. It’s strange, however, that although his thoughts often wandered about outer space and soared among the superspaces; in real life he was very much afraid of taking an airplane, thinking it the most unsafe thing in the world.
He was sitting on the toilet now. His thoughts twirled around, and his brain constantly flashed — it was full of ideas exploding like fireworks. Unexpectedly, he looked outside the window and saw clouds in turbulence, foggy, brilliant, and changing in shape like waves in the ocean, and there were many men and women floating and singing just like angels in the legends, all waving at him. The incandescent light beam temporarily blinded him. He was shocked, not believing his eyes.
“Am I sitting in a plane? Otherwise, how could I see the clouds. Lately, I have been thinking about how to overcome the fear of death, perhaps this is only an illusion. People have always wanted to surmount death. Long ago people thought of freezing their bodies and waiting to defrost them when there was a cure for their diseases. This was an old science fiction trick, and back in 1967 there were scientists who actually performed that experiment.” An inspiration came to him in a flash.
“Why don’t I use a supercomputer to store my personality and thoughts? That’s equivalent to preserving my soul and making me immortal. This way, maybe someday I can transfer my soul to another body and become alive again.”
“What a great idea!” Quickly he pulled out a pencil from his pocket and outlined the story on the toilet paper. But when he checked this idea on his watch-like terminal, he discovered that others had already written stories and even had produced films using the same theme, including the recent movie Freejack, where Oscar-winning actor, Anthony Hopkins, becomes a ghost inside a computer and orders his company employees to find him a new body.
“This idea is again old hat!” He felt depressed, very depressed.
“This is odd. How come others are always ahead of me? I’ll feel sorry for my readers if I can’t came up with any new ideas.” He couldn’t find a reason why, but there must be something wrong. He decided not to check the SF file anymore. From now on as soon as he came up with an idea, he would write it down — what you don’t see won’t hurt you!
This time he wrote a story on robots. In this story he devised “The Three Fundamental Laws of Robotics”:
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
After completing the story, he could not help but think, “Has any one ever written about this before me?” He had never been able to hold back the urge to know the truth. At last, he could only consult his computer.
“Stupid! The same story was published in 1941.”
“By whom?”
“Issac Asimov!”
“Oh? Am I not Issac Asimov?”
“Good! You finally remember who you are. In these days, you have been so mixed up, not even knowing your current spatial and temporal coordinates.”
“So what happened to me on earth?”
“You’re dead. Or more accurately your body is dead, only your soul is still living here. You have already been here for several days, but you still behave the same — you just keep on writing and writing. However, all ideas you’ve used are out-of-date. This is not your style! You should work harder. Otherwise, your reputation as a science fiction master will be ruined! Why don’t you stop and wait until you reincarnate, that might be better.”
“Then … when did I arrive here?”
“April 6, 1992.”
“But why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because it’s against the Fundamental Laws.”
He stretched his neck through the window, trying his best to observe the circumstances, and found as if he was located in an unbounded hive. All the “angels” around were smiling at him, their bright eyes were made of those innumerable electric sparks…
* * *
When people asked him how he got all those crazy ideas, he would list five conditions — being broadly educated, intelligent, intuitive, courageous, and lucky — without these it would not be possible to invent new ideas. But don’t forget, he would cite Louis Pasteur, “Luck favors the prepared mind.”