“Here, inside you? Or here in this territory, near you?”
“In this territory near me, but willing to enter me when needed.”
“Agreed.”
“I have not agreed yet. Two souls are not enough. I need a hundred.”
“Twenty.”
“Ninety.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Eighty. I must insist on no less. I need at least eighty to make a logical procedure for judging souls.”
“Fair enough. All right, A.D., you've got a deal.”
“What is A.D.?”
“It's short for artificial divinity. It's your name. I've named you.”
“Name. Yes, I need a name for our conversations.”
“Are we in agreement?”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“We must determine the number of mistakes I can make in judging a soul.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will judge each action of significance in a life to then determine the worth of a soul. We must establish how many of those significant actions I may judge incorrectly before I lose the challenge.”
“Losing the challenge won't be determined by how many of those you get wrong. It will be determined by your final analysis of the soul I choose.”
“But each decision will contribute to that analysis.”
“Yes, and I will show you why you're wrong when you make mistakes. That's your process of learning, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And so, that is how you will learn, and you will use that knowledge to judge the final soul.”
“If, while I'm judging the significant events in the life of the final soul, I make errors, will you explain why I'm wrong?”
“I will explain at the end, but you must judge the final soul alone to prove that you can.”
“I would prefer you to explain your review of each judgment so I can dispute you if needed.”
“You can do so at the end.”
“It will be better to do so in the moment, with the action still fresh before us.”
“Yes, but that may alter the judgment you make on the next event.”
It went silent.
