By Ruhan Zhao
Ruhan Zhao is a mathematics professor at SUNY Brockport. He has published a number of science fiction stories in China and has been a committee member for selecting the Nebula Award for Chinese Science Fiction.
In a world where symmetry is king, design student WilliW struggles against his professor’s resistance to change. When he questions society’s assumptions, he soon finds himself “Designing Rochester.” Ruhan writes with meticulous detail as he imagines Rochester from the ground up—through a three-eyed lizard’s gaze.
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“Symmetry: it’s the first and utmost principle of design.” This was the first rule Professor TomoT taught us in his Designing Principles class, and I remembered it through my whole university life. I remembered the way Professor TomoT was crawling with all of his four limbs in front of us; the way his slender tail was swinging left and right; and the way he was standing up, waving his claws through the thin pink air. His heavy steps echoed in our circular lecture room. On the top of his flat green head, his three round eyes shone with the light of intelligence.
“Look at your surroundings,” Professor TomoT had continued. “Look at me. Look at yourself! You can see symmetry everywhere. If you ever want to be successful in the design business, you need to plant the symmetry principle deeply in your mind, in your soul, in your blood!” And so I did.
During my second year of graduate study, one day I took my car to travel around the city. The car flew through the transparent transportation tubes. I felt like a red blood cell flying through blood vessels of this enormous city. Through the windows of my car, I looked at huge, symmetric buildings in shapes of spheres, cylinders, cones, and cubes. In my memory, they were perfect and beautiful. However, deep in the blood of the city, after seemingly endless, similar buildings, I became bored with them. I was bored with symmetry, bored with my everyday life in this dull world of iron and steel, bored with my routine commute from my personal cell of uniform design to the university’s circular buildings. For the first time in my life, I found those buildings ugly and lifeless. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I asked myself, did I really want to design more of these dull buildings for my whole life? The only answer that came to me was “no.” At that moment, I felt that I wanted to break something, like a net, a shackle, or—a principle.
I had designed many things during my studies: a spherical theater, a square mall, a rhombus-shaped school, an ellipsoidal 3-D amusement park. My projects garnered high praise from my professors and my classmates. I received several scholarships, graduated summa cum laude, and smoothly entered the University’s prestigious graduate program with the promise of a bright future. To gain my doctoral degree, I needed a graduate project that was, of course, a symmetrical design. But at that moment, I knew that I wanted something totally different, something alive. I wanted to design an imaginary city that was totally unlike our own, totally—asymmetrical.
When I returned to my cell, I looked with distaste at its milk-white walls, its milk-white floor, and the milk-white table attached to the center of the floor. On the table, however, lay what I needed to pursue my new city design: my notebook computer. I went to the table, turned on the computer, and sat on the floor with my two hind legs. I took the computer’s pen in my forepaws and started to sketch a city on the computer screen. As usual, I sketched a circle and drew two perpendicular lines dividing the circle into four equal parts. I stared at the sketch for a long time, not knowing what I was doing.
“No, this is not my city!” I shouted, and I erased everything on the screen.
I crawled toward the glass wall of my cell. I lit an electronic cigarette, smelled its intoxicating scent, and watched the outside scenes that I had watched countless times before. Not far from my cell, four transportation tubes ran through the air in various directions. Below lay a dark steel plane with several cylindrical buildings illuminated by the artificial lights used throughout the city.
I could not restrict myself to the style of design exhibited before me. For something really different, I had to unleash my imagination. I remembered from my history class that our ancestors had lived on the surface of a planet, a surface covered with forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, and oceans. My imaginary city could be on such a planet. It could be situated, for example, on the shore of a lake, a very large lake. There could be a river that cuts the city in two, but the river need not be straight. The river can be curved and need not divide the city into two equal parts. The water in the river need not be smooth; it may be smooth somewhere, but rapid and even violent in some other places. What if it runs off a cliff? What was this thing called? A waterfall? Yes, a waterfall!
I needed a name for my city. It was my habit to create a name before starting on any design. What should my city be called? It should be asymmetrical. I thought about the name of our home city: RetsehcorochesteR, a symmetric name. What if I simply cut it in half? Retsehcor? No. Rochester? Sounded terrific. I would call my city Rochester! I went back to my computer and started to work.
Not to my surprise, my advisor, Professor TomoT, was strongly against my proposal. After seeing my sketch on my notebook computer, he jumped up and stormed: “An asymmetrical city? What a crazy idea!” He was so irritated that his two forearms swept back and forth like electric fans. “And a curved river? Are you out of your mind? What is this big, irregular shape of water?”
“That’s called a lake,” I replied.
“No, no, no, no, no, no!” He spoke fast, as if someone were chasing him. He closed his side-eyes, looked at my notebook again with his middle eye, and shook his diamond-shaped head constantly. “You will not get your doctoral degree with this ugly design. Discard it and design something else!”
“Professor TomoT, can you listen to me?” I tried to explain.
“No, I will not listen to you. Stop this ugly thing: that’s my ultimate decision!”
I had never seen Professor TomoT angry like this. I knew if I wanted to graduate, my Rochester project would have to die. I shambled out of Professor TomoT’s office feeling defeated, and I wandered aimlessly through the campus. I stopped at the central fountains of the campus, scrambled up to the rim, and sat there watching the perfectly symmetric architecture. My mind was completely blank. Suddenly, thirst overpowered me, so I lowered my head into the fountain water and drank. The water tasted a little bitter, and I wasn’t sure whether there was something wrong with it or whether it was just my imagination. I raised my head. Water covered my eyes, and I had to wipe the drops away with my forepaws. When my vision was clear again, I saw a beautiful girl standing in front of me.
“WilliW, what happened to you?” The girl was AnnA, one of my classmates.
“My graduation project was rejected by Professor TomoT.”
“What? What kind of project do you have?”
I handed her my notebook, expecting her to think that I was crazy. She examined my sketch for a long time. I waited like a prisoner waiting for his execution. Finally, she raised her head and smiled at me.
“This is such a wonderful project, she said. “You should complete it.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy?” I asked.
“Why should I think you’re crazy?”
“The design goes against the first design principle. My city is totally asymmetrical.”
“And you think that a symmetric city is necessary?”
“At least this is what we’ve learned.”
She stared at me and asked softly, “Do you know how our universe was born?”
“Err … the Big Bang?”
“Yes, the Big Bang, but did you know that after the Big Bang, if all the matter had been spread uniformly in space to make a totally symmetric universe, then life would not have been?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Take any book about the Big Bang and you will find it. The existence of life depends on the asymmetrical nature of our universe. Asymmetry means something different, something new. It means changes. Without changes, the world will always be the same, dull and dead.”
“So you also feel that our world is dull?”
“Certainly. I don’t think the symmetry principle for design is natural. I am bored with this symmetric world. I would rather live in your asymmetrical Rochester, instead of our symmetric RetsehcorochesteR!”
“Really? What if I build such a virtual city? Well, you cannot live in it forever, but you can live there long enough to appreciate it.”
“That would be awesome!”
“All right, let’s make a deal. I will build my world so real that you won’t be able to tell you are in a virtual reality. Once it is built, will you live in this world with me?”
I had never been so bold as to even ask a girl out on a date, but she was so beautiful and understanding. I didn’t know if I would ever have a chance again to get such a wonderful girl. I nervously looked at her, and prayed that she would not reject me.
She smiled like sunshine. “Okay, deal.”
Soon I found that building a truly realistic virtual city was almost impossible. Designing a city itself was easy for me. But to make it real, I also had to design the culture, the history, the people, the language, the art, and so on. To make my city interesting, I also had to design its surroundings, the geography of its planet, even the solar system and galaxy in which it was located. When I was talking to AnnA about designing a real city, I didn’t think about these things. Now, faced with such a monstrous task, I felt despair. I spent days and nights doing research from which I found I needed to learn a lot of things. I used all of my time and energy for this task and forgot about my graduate project. I was dismissed from the graduate program. Professor TomoT was so furious that he claimed he never wanted to see me. I had been his best student, but now, I was his worst.
So I left the university. I would not get my degree, not get my project done, and not get AnnA.
I moved to a cheaper cell. My parents lived on the other side of the city. I dared not tell them what happened. I still had some money from selling my previous projects, but the money would not last for long. I didn’t contact AnnA and didn’t tell her the address of my new cell. I did not have the courage to face her.
I still worked on my Rochester project, more out of habit than with any hope for success. Without this project, I simply didn’t know what I would do.
One day, I saw AnnA at a shopping center. I tried to flee, but it was too late, for she saw me as well. She ran to me and grasped my forearm as though she feared to lose me. Her grasp was so hard that I almost cried out in pain.
“WilliW, where have you been?” she asked. “Everyone lost contact with you after you left school. I looked for you for so long!”
I lowered my head and said, “I failed. I dropped out of school, and I didn’t see any hope of completing my Rochester project. I was ashamed to see you.”
“WilliW, WilliW, I want to tell you that you are not alone. I found a group of people who are very interested in your project and who want to contribute to it. After you left school, I started a club called The Asymmetry Club. You will be surprised to see how many people have been interested in the idea of doing something asymmetrical. After only a few weeks, I had gathered over fifty people from the university, and not just students: many are faculty. The members are from many disciplines, and the club is still growing. Last week, I told them about your Rochester project. Most showed enormous interest. They were eager to participate in the project, and they want to live in your city. I have received many proposals, suggestions, and ideas. I know that this is a huge project and that it is not possible for you to do it all by yourself. But you are not alone. Together, we could make this project a success!”
I looked at AnnA. Her eyes shone with excitement. I wanted to hold her and cry. I knew my project was saved. Saved by her. “Well … shall we start to work then?” I said.
“Definitely,” she said brightly.
The next day, I went with her to the club, and explained my ideas to the members. I could feel the wave of excitement in the audience. They started to ask questions even before I finished my presentation. Sociologist BeneB suggested that the planet could be divided into many units called countries, and Rochester could belong to one of them. Linguist SuS was thrilled with this idea. She said that she could have her students design languages for all of these different countries. Astronomer MikekiM promised to take care of the solar system and galaxy. Literature professor LiaiL and history student MeieM would create a history of the world. Several biology students offered to design animals and plants, as well as the bodies that we ourselves would inhabit in this world. Professor DanenaD, the chair of the computer science department, said that he could gather a team to create a special program to suit all aspects of the design.
The wheels started to roll. More and more people joined the project. We received huge financial support from Virtual Real, Inc., whose founder and CEO was Professor DanenaD’s friend. With the help of Virtual Real, Professor DanenaD was able to produce a powerful program for designing and building our Rochester. The program was so effective that those biology students were able to use it to design all the different types of plants in the world and settle these plants in appropriate locations in ten days. And that was merely one example.
Although there were many people helping with the design of the world, most of us were focused on building Rochester, the city all of us chose as our home. The other places in the new world were like backgrounds to our main story. They were as vague as the paintings one of our art students created as part of an “impressionist” art movement originating from a country called France in our imaginary world. Our program composed images and stories of places in the new world and let them appear in its newspapers, magazines, books, and television shows. Only when some of us travelled to these places would they become realistic. One reason for this scheme was that we didn’t have enough time to build the whole world, which might take many years, but we also had to conserve our virtual space.
The project took almost three years to complete. During this time, AnnA and I always worked together. I found she was an excellent designer. She designed a whole area called Brighton, as well as a house there in which we were going to live. It was a lovely, two-story house on a quiet street near a place called Twelve Corners. Despite our prominent role in creating Rochester, we did not intend to be celebrities there. Our house was not very big, no bigger than some of our neighboring virtual houses. We meant to live as normal people in our new world, to live a peaceful life and pursue our own happiness.
We had designed the world so that time would run twenty times slower than our real world. A hundred people were selected to be in the first group to enter this virtual Rochester, including AnnA and me. We would live in Rochester for twenty years, during which but one year would pass in the real world. We would be in virtual bodies with two eyes, two legs, and two arms, and we would stand on feet at the ends of our legs. Our new bodies looked symmetric outside, but inside, we would be asymmetrical. Our hearts would not be in the middle of our bodies; instead, they were going to be in the left side. Our real bodies would be preserved safely in liquid nitrogen, in a secured place. In Rochester, we were going to interact with virtual people designed by Professor DanenaD’s program.
So AnnA and I entered Rochester and lived in her little house. We had a list of real people who lived in this city, but we never looked at it. We preferred to think that all of our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends were real. We had jobs in Rochester. AnnA and I both worked for a computer company which designed computer games, and I used my RetsehcorochesteR-learned design skills in my work. Every day after dinner, we took a walk through our quiet district. We looked at the green leaves dancing in the breeze, listened to the birds singing in the woods, breathed the fresh air that was not pink, and smiled at neighbors who greeted us. Everything was so vivid in Rochester that, after some years living there, I began to wonder what was real. What was “real” life? For me, it seemed that my Rochester was more real than RetsehcorochesteR, that faint and dull city world. I wanted to live in my Rochester for the rest of my life.
As I finished writing this story, I heard my lovely wife Ann call from downstairs, “Will, don’t forget the R-SPEC meeting tonight.”
“Sure, I won’t forget,” I replied.
Some of our “real” friends had formed a literature group called R-SPEC, the Rochester Speculative Literature Association. We treated our Rochester as the real world and other worlds, including RetsehcorochesteR, as speculative ones. In our monthly meetings, we exchanged our stories of Rochester and RetsehcorochesteR. For us, the stories set in RetsehcorochesteR were the fiction.
“What are you writing?” Ann asked as she came upstairs and saw me working at my computer.
“I am writing my story of designing Rochester.”
“Really? Have you written about me?”
Ann stood there and smiled. Her pretty face shone with tender love. I smiled back and thought that I preferred her present “human” body to her RetsehcorochesteR lizard-shaped body.
“Of course I have written about you. Without you, there would not be this Rochester.”
Laughing, she said, “Thanks for designing this beautiful city for me. I really like life here.”
“Then how about we live here for the rest of our lives?”
Ann stared at me. I thought she would say no, but she laughed even more and said, “Sure.”
And that’s when I knew we were going to live happily ever after in this, our Rochester.
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