And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba (Genesis 18-19, King James Version).
And Isaac left home after the sun came down, and wandered in the wilderness for four days and four nights; and he didn’t eat or drink.
On the morning of the fifth day, he was about to die; and he saw a white mouse.
To make things simpler, I’ll write the rest of the story in plain English, including their conversations.
The mouse was wearing a complicated device that looks like a backpack. “Hi, Isaac,” it said, “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine...You can talk? And how do you know my name?” Said Isaac, shocked.
“But you don’t look fine. You didn’t eat or drink for four days.”
”How do you know?”
“I was following you. By the way, you can call me Comae. Nice to meet you.”
“What?” Isaac sounded disturbed.
“I was following you.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I can give you food and drink if you come with me. You don’t want to die, do you?”
“I don’t...I don’t know. Maybe dying is not that bad.”
“Your father was trying to kill you, right? I know. It’s understandable that you might feel confused or suicidal now, but come with me. We can talk about it.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll tell you everything if you come with me.”
“Fine.”
Isaac followed Comae. Suddenly, an oval region of the scene in front of them turned grey. A huge floating capsule with a silver laser texture surface appeared above the vast desert. The length of its shadow was more than two hundred meters.
“What’s that?” asked Isaac.
“A spaceship.”
“What’s a spaceship?”
“Something we use to travel between stars and planets in the universe.”
“What’s a universe? What are planets?”
Comae then explained some physics and astronomy to Isaac. You already know these, so I’ll skip this part.
After they arrived at the spaceship, Comae squeaked, and a rectangle hole appeared on the wall of the spaceship. A ladder extended from the hole to the ground. Isaac saw Comae fiddling with its backpack. Suddenly it rose from the ground and floated towards the entrance. Isaac then followed it to the interior of the spaceship.
The interior was big. Isaac kept following Comae going through dozens of departments and corridors, watching it greeting other mice on their way. Finally, they arrived at a room filled with machines Isaac has never seen.
“Now hold on to your questions,” said Comae, “Stand in the cylinder chamber and close your eyes for a minute.”
“What will this machine do to me?” Issac stared at it nervously.
“It will scan your body, especially your brain, but that’s not important. It won’t hurt you, so just go in.”
“Fine.”
After Isaac closed his eyes in the machine, he heard some noise and then a mechanical voice saying “scan completed” in mice language. Of course, he couldn’t understand it.
“It’s over, Isaac,” said Comae, “Now you can come out.”
Isaac went out and sat on the ground.
“So how do you know my name?” he asked.
“Abraham is a robot we made, and we let him give you that name. By the way, both of our names are generated randomly from the same algorithm. Isn’t it cool?”
“But he told me my name means laughter, and he gave me that name because…”
“The reason is also made up by us.”
“Fine,” said Isaac, disappointed, “Also, what’s a robot? How did you make a man like Abraham?”
“Robots are machines that resemble creatures, although some of them might be creatures that look like machines. Anyway, we don’t quite care. It’s fine either way.”
“Then am I a real human? Did you also make me?”
“We cloned you. Basically, yes, we made you, but you are still a human.”
Isaac’s head sank. He stayed silent for a moment and then asked: “If you let Abraham give me my name, did you also make him kill me?”
“Well, he didn’t, after all.”
“He tried to. He told me God let him do that, but God is omnibenevolent, so it must be you trying to murder me, you devils.” Isaac raised his voice.
“Yeah, it’s us, but what’s God anyway.”
“He’s the almighty Lord, the creator of the world...”
“Well, then we are the God according to your definition, since we designed the earth and everything on it, and we paid the Magratheans to manufacture it. By the way, nobody created us, we evolved by ourselves.”
“Why did you make the earth? Also, why did you make me?”
“It’s part of our experiment.”
“Then what am I living for?” claimed Isaac in excitement.
“For our experiment.”
“No, it shouldn’t be like that,” Isaac said and covered his ears with his hand, “I must be devoting myself to something greater, such as God…”
“Why are you still unsatisfied?” Asked Comae curiously, “You asked us what’s the purpose of your life and we told you. What else do you want? Oh, right, I’ll tell them to bring you some food. Do you like hamburgers?”
“I don’t know, but it’s just...not right! You can’t be God, He’s far more great and mighty than you, you filthy creatures!” Isaac said and suddenly grabbed Comae in his left hand, staring at it.
“What?” Comae stared back at him, confused.
“Enough!” Isaac clutched Comae hard, hoping that it could die.
Suddenly, an alarm started ringing, and a dart aimed at Isaac came out of nowhere. Isaac felt dizzy after he got shot. Soon, he fainted and fell to the ground.
“Mousoid number 10086 is broken, but a minor problem it is. What do you think, Lunkwill?” the door of the room opened, and a white mouse said to another while walking towards Isaac’s body. Several large robots accompanied them.
“Now he’s asleep,” said the mouse next to it, “Let’s start dissecting him. Computer, take this body with us.”