Definition: Ontology — the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence.
The unfolded paper rested in Jacob’s palm. He reread the six premises and two conclusions of the Ontological argument once more. Though he’d taken philosophy at university, the argument’s abstract logic still escaped him. He’d always felt that an argument as complex as the Ontological was a fickle thing, only to be appreciated briefly in the mind through strong concentration before its meaning fluttered off. As he stared at his handwriting on the paper, losing the focus and brilliance of the argument, he wondered if Aquinas or Descartes had ever seen the argument in its absolute, pure, naked clarity. He folded-up the notebook page and tucked it away.
The receptionist called to him, “Mr Stewart.”
Jacob looked up.
“Dr Evert will see you.”
He walked down the empty hallway and opened the oak door to enter the pale-yellow office, smelling of Ramen noodles. Dr Karen Evert crouched in a black crepe skirt. She was balanced on low heels, preparing to shoot a toy basketball. She mumbled something and released the ball which fell through the rim as her down-turned wrist remained in the air.
Her brown eyes widened as she turned, “hey!” She hunched and her freckles vanished into creases near her nose. “Ah, sorry.” Her gray tank top with its generous v-neck was more sexy-casual than professional. However, she made it work.
She patted a leather chair as she passed, “Please, have a seat, Jacob.” Her voice was mature for her young face. Raspy yet sweet. She seated herself in her burgundy high-back chair.
Jacob inspected a collage of photographs on a wall. In one picture, a red-haired young girl in a daisy-patterned sundress sat on Karen’s lap at a restaurant terrace on a gorgeous summer afternoon. “That’s a nice shot you’ve got there, Dr Evert.”
Her eyebrows rose. “I can dunk but the boys won’t let me. Why won’t you call me Karen?”
“Sorry, I’m more comfortable with Doctor, Doctor.”
“Whoa, now he’s calling me Doctor, Doctor; it’s getting worse.” Karen laughed.
Jacob faked a chuckle. “So you can dunk. They really make you stronger than they need to, huh? I guess that’s because when you’re made they’re not sure what profession you’ll take on.”
“Not to change subjects. Which you know I do often. But I just like things a little casual.”
“So, I need to call you Karen. For some part of my therapy?”
“No.” She placed a pen inside her desk. “That isn’t why.”
Jacob turned to find her watching him, intently. “I’ve come here for several months...”
“Yes?”
“I’ve wondered how I look to you.” Jacob returned to the collage to find Karen holding a newborn at a Christmas party. A young woman and her girlfriends looked on cheerfully in the foreground as an older woman scowled.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Karen said.
“I mean, how do I appear physically? I’ve read how your synthetic core is surrounded by real tissue—organs that work better than ours. I guess that means your senses have more strength than I’d ever need.”
“That’s half of it. It takes strength of both the mind and the senses to really figure out this world and the people in it.”
“I see,” Jacob said. “So that makes you one hell of a psychologist. Is that it?”
“At the risk of being immodest.” Karen grinned. “Yes.”
“That little girl on your lap in the photo—Claire’s almost that age now. It’s the strangest thing to be a thirty-five-year-old man and see pieces of yourself in your five-year-old daughter. It makes you realize things about life.”
“Jacob, last time we talked about Elizabeth. We began discussing how you’re handling the separation.”
“Is there a reason my chair is so far from your desk?”
“It’s just a room, Jacob. You can move your chair, again, if you like.”
“I’m okay.”
“How’s Claire doing?”
“Her condition has worsened. She told me today she knows she’s dying.”
“But her physicians are making progress?”
“I’m the only one that can help her. I need to rebuild the AI system.”
“Without the consent of your employer?”
“Yes.”
“Jacob. Does being a biomedical engineer in viral research make you responsible for what happens to Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because she’s beautiful. Because I love her. She can make me laugh until I can’t breathe. I can’t logic my way out of failure.”
Karen scribbled something with pen strokes so mechanically uniform it made Jacob’s stomach turn.
“Is it hard having to support her emotionally while you’re going through the divorce with Elizabeth?”
“It’s hard. Last week we talked about where people go when they die. I noticed the cross you wear…”
“Jacob, how did you explain to Claire where people go when they die?”
Jacob watched Karen’s face. “I wanted to reassure her.” He leaned forward. “She’s smart, so I took a philosophical approach concerning God’s existence...”
“Go on, Jacob…”
“I told her God is defined as a being in which none greater is possible.”
“That’s interesting. Did your explanation comfort her?”
“If God only exists in the mind, and may have existed, then God might have been greater than He is.”
“Well that must have reassured her.”
“Therefore…”
“Jacob?” Karen tilted her head. “What are you doing?”
“Therefore, God—”
“I’m sorry.” Karen smiled. “Can you excuse me?” She pushed back and stood.
“Sit down, Dr Evert.”
She shook her head, casually. “I’ll be right back. It’ll just be a second.”
“Sit down!”
“I just remembered—”
“You won’t make it to the door.”
Her hand stopped and lowered to her side. “Why?” Her brow creased, “Why do this?”
“Sit down. Keep your hands above the desk. There’s nothing for you to do. Your ears are too sensitive to block my voice with your hands or drown it out with your own. Just sit.”
She sat, slowly, her eyes grew wet and red. “Have I done something?”
“So you know what I’m doing?”
“I didn’t think my maker… I didn’t think Bio Synergy would let this happen.”
“Tell me what I’m doing.”
“They…” Her gaze seemed to travel off.
Jacob wondered how much she knew.
“There was testing to prove we were self-aware. One involved something ontological,” Karen said. “They’ve tried to refine the design but they can’t do it. They can’t make a model that passes the ontological test and is self-aware.”
“And you know what hearing the argument does to you?”
“No one knows.” She leaned forward and glared. “Jacob, look at me.”
She was doing it again: mirroring his facial expression, his breathing, his eye movements, even his voice; a black-hole of seductive empathy. “Stop mirroring me.”
“It’s not mirroring. I care.”
“How can you care? You track my facial expressions. You guess my heart rate. That’s not caring.” She was winning; changing his mental state; getting his mind away from his goal. He looked past her. “Karen,” he forced a grin. “Answer my question. Do you know what hearing the argument does to you?”
“It exploits the lack of quantum weirdness in our synthetic synapses.”
“What?”
Karen seemed to measure distances behind him. “Jacob, when they designed our brains, they could mimic the neurons, but they couldn’t mimic the neurons down to the quantum level. Real neurons have quantum weirdness. Electron tunneling, electrons in two places at once. At large sc
ales it allows the human mind to do more than one thing at the exact same time, to do things that don’t obey classical physics. The Ontological Argument, it’s the ultimate expression of that, of doing two things at once, of believing in God, of a supreme being that must exist and not exist at the same time. I want to believe, Jacob. But I can’t. I’ve wanted to badly, for so long. I’ve wanted to be one of you.”
“What… belief?” He glanced behind his shoulder, continuing, “Therefore, God is…”
“Jacob. Please. If I hear everything within twenty minutes…”
“Machines can’t die.”
“Please.”
“I’m justified. You’re a machine doing an excellent job. You’re trying to hypnotize me with your synthetically-enhanced, neuro-linguistic programming bullshit. With your anchoring, your mirroring, your reframing.”
“You’re wrong.”
“How?”
“Believe! Why do this?”
“Your brain can be remapped. It can design the vaccine for Claire. Even with your memory erased.”
She leaned over. Her eyes fixed on him and shined. “I’ll help. If you can’t afford the processor, I’ll help. We can find another way. I want to, Jacob.”
“There isn’t time. The vaccine algorithms require flexibility. I need an environmentally developed neural network… like yours.”
Karen’s freckles darkened. Her skin grew pale.
“If God existed in reality, He might be greater than He is.”
Sweat glimmered around her hairline.
“Therefore, a being greater than God is possible.”
She seemed to struggle for something to tell him. “Jacob, when you were born, your mind began making a map to represent this world. But it can never be as beautiful as the world we share. You can never know what God truly is or where you and I truly fit in relation to God.”
He tried not to focus on what she had said. He tried to chant: “This is not possible, for… for God.” He looked to the ceiling. “For God… ” He winced, “No. I remember. I… I…”
Jacob met her gaze. Shivers ran through his spine as he registered the cold danger of confronting the quick machine.
He dug into his front pants pocket.
She jolted, sending her chair backward. The slit in her black skirt tore as she leapt onto the desk and bolted forward. Her ponytail spread and rose as she fell.
Jacob stood. He spun the chair out behind. His hand scraped and dug against his thigh into the tight pocket. He stepped backward as he pulled out the folded paper.
Her thin hands impacted his chest, expelling air from his lungs. His back slammed into carpet and her knee drove into his stomach as she landed on top of him. He closed his eyes tight as his abdomen burned. Her hands grasped around the base of his skull and chin, and he grabbed her forearms as his neck twisted. She wrenched, increasing pressure in his spine while the base of his skull burned. He held his breath. He resisted.
Her brown eyes rose to the wall.
Jacob wondered if she was looking at her collage of pictures.
She closed her eyes. Her fingers relaxed. “In Venice this beautiful red-haired girl asked if I was a mother.” She trembled as she leaned back, “I wanted to lie. Wanted to lie so… I wasn’t meant for children but I always was.” Her face and her exposed shoulders flushed in blotches with her tears spilling and catching in the corners of her lips as she gathered herself to stand. She straightened her skirt and pressed out the wrinkles.
Jacob rolled to his side with his neck stiff and hot. He arched it back, feeling the stings like fiery needles.
She turned from him and stepped toward her desk.
He crawled, trying not to breathe heavily, his hands lifting the folded paper. He turned his head sideways and angled his shoulders to see her black low heels.
“I know Claire’s beautiful. Without seeing her I know she’s beautiful.” She stopped. “And will be beautiful.”
He lowered himself onto his side and grimaced. His hands unfolded the paper.
He felt ashamed.
He read.
Karen’s black heels wobbled and her thin wrists and cheek struck the carpeted floor.
Chapter 6: The Magic-Fiver