God vs Caretaker

They came daily, standing together with their hands smashed and entwined, to stare through the polished glass and at the pink, wiggling genetic mash-up that made their eyes glisten. Now and again a singular drop of clear liquid would run down one of their cheeks and the other would wipe it away. This was affection. This was love. I knew this because I was able to look through hundreds and hundreds of years of digital database and compare this image to those I found in films. All of those films said that this display was love. And it was the most powerful thing a human being could feel.

Therefore, they loved this tiny creature though they hardly knew it. I registered their heartbeats and recorded them each visit and with each visit, the numbers would dance around, sometimes more so if their little genetic copy was tittering on the edge of being deceased. This, I knew in the same way I had known they loved, would cause them deep pain.

I did not know love, or pain, or fear, or any of these emotions, but I saw them. I recorded them. I was programmed to mimic them if my subjects commanded me to, but it was only a facsimile. I would only ever be sound waves floating through the air.

I followed them today as they pressed their palms to the glass, leaving smudges and pulled themselves away. They drifted down the corridors of my floating castle, their hands still entwined and their shoulders brushing now and then. I peeked in at every turn they made, following their unique genetic registry on my digital pathways until they slipped into a room I hardly visited.

There was only one control pad in the room, at the back and to the side of the door for me to watch them through. They walked passed me, down a line of sleek, cushioned pews and toward the front of the room where a podium stood. Quickly, I searched the digital pathways of my resources to compare this room to others and came back with one word: CHURCH.

Other words popped up with it: CROSS. CHRIST. FAITH. LOVE. Tangible and yet not.

They seated themselves at the front pew, facing the large, steel cross. My database said that such a thing was a symbol of their belief, though I had a fleeting wonder at how such a scientifically horrible death could be such a symbol of belief. I could not question this further as it was not in my capabilities. Too many search results with conflicting reports bombarded my system and I had to set them off in order to continue my observation.

The woman bent over herself, her shoulders shaking. She was sobbing. She was in pain. He put a hand on her back, rubbing circles. Soothing. He could not physically take her pain but he was trying to offer comfort. I had seen this many times in the infirmary that I was quite familiar with the human struggle of such an emotion. I wondered if I had a hand and did the same motion if I would be seen as comforting. Would my lack of human soul interfere or was it purely a physical comfort?

He looked to the cross and sent his vocal patterns upwards to it. I turned my sensors up in order to catch the waves bouncing off the surfaces.

"-Just so young. So many possibilities. See fit to wrap her in Your arms and heal her. You are God. You can do all things. I ask for this one miracle. To heal her little heart so that we can serve You better. We love her so much. Please don't take her from us. Please give us more time..." He drifted off into a silence but his voice had been strained. Was that yearning? Begging? Pain? Where these the vocal patterns of such emotion?

His head dipped and then he pulled the woman into him and they sat for a long while, quiet. I watched them, my patience endless. As I watched, I drifted away to watch an engineer kick at a wall in frustration; a little boy stomp off to his room when he was denied a cookie; the captain rub his temples and let out a long breath; a woman pull her knees up to her chest and cry. All these things happened at once on my flying castle and each human was in my care. Did that make me a god?

I stopped to watch the wiggling infant once more. In a nanosecond, I scanned her vitals and recorded them. I sent an alarm to the doctor, a human, with the results and then I was back with the couple. I waited.

In moments, a doctor slipped into the room, their feet drawing the attention of the couple who turned, faces changing by the moment. I couldn't register all of the changes in order to adequately research the emotional trait. As the doctor relayed the information I had given them, I saw their faces settle on one that I knew: joy.

In the brief moment I had spent looking in on the humans in my care, the infant had found what the human's called a miracle. I had done nothing to make such a miracle happen. I could not share their joy at this miracle. I could not embrace them. I had simply watched and recorded. An observer.

I was no god.

I was a caretaker. Did that mean that I, too, could believe? Did belief require a soul? My circuits were created by a human and maintained by a human. I was programmed to learn. To mimic on command. Was that a soul?

According to my searches, the Christian Bible said that God created human beings. Human beings created me. Did God create me?

There were too many studies; too many counter balances. I would need more research.

I recorded the evidence of a miracle.

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