They searched for scientific proof of the human soul. What they discovered was unthinkable... How do we think and do we have souls? These are the questions that a neuro-quantum interfacer called the Cartesian Machine was created to answer. Late one night, in a hospital lab buried deep beneath Manhattan, the Machine is surgically implanted to save a ten-year old orphan who just died in a car crash. As he wakes up to a reality no longer his own, the world above him is plunged into utter chaos, the physics professor who created the Machine is gunned down, and the neurosurgeon who cares for him disappears. Alone, kept alive by memory and the desperate hope of seeing his mother's spirit, he is forced to make a decision that will seal his fate and shake the very foundation of humanity. That is, if he could survive an audacious rescue attempt by two graduate students as the world's most powerful and diabolical forces converge to retrieve the Machine.