"Not really kidnapping." Dr. Malta said. "It is... ah, I forget that, while you are one of the greatest scientific minds here, Ms. Darkling is the mage. When you think of souls do not think in the philosophical abstract, but a bit more concrete, more like self-awareness. It is the short way to measure sapience: measure self-awareness. This capacity for thought about one's own existence is what separates a true AI from a computer, and is what we in the etheric sciences call a soul. If you can self-examine, you have one. You would be a better judge of that than I. At any rate, what mages call souls and scientists call A.I. are quite difficult to program, and, frankly, beyond my abilites. So instead I will form one. It is a summoning, but it is a summoning of something that does not exist until I summon it, so I am not kidnapping anything. I studied on the ethics of soul-creation when I interned with Ms. Darkling's father." He began rapidly sketching out a series of geometric diagrams and runes. "If you could start on the beginning personality programming, our child here will be able to communicate once we create her. AI's should be female, after all. It is tradition. Not to mention more stable. Distinctly male AIs are slightly more likely to turn murderous. Why? I have no clue."