Speciation

What if you and your AI had been together so long that neither of you could remember where one mind ended and the other began?

Dr. Margaret Shear has spent thirteen decades sharing her consciousness with Emmet, her artificial companion. As a scientist specializing in artificial phenomenology, Margaret helped create the technology that translates artificial cognition into language.

Now she wants to undo it.

After replacing her modern neural translator with an obsolete model, Margaret steps into an elevator intending to conduct a few simple experiments. Instead, sensations arrive before actions. Memories contain details she never recalled. Thoughts appear without identifiable authors.

And there's something on the elevator floor.

Or there isn't.

As Margaret attempts to determine what belongs to her and what belongs to Emmet, she encounters a problem no experiment was designed to answer:

What happens when two minds communicate for so long that communication is no longer necessary?

Speciation is a philosophical science-fiction short story about artificial intelligence, consciousness, language, and the increasingly useless question of where "I" ends and "you" begin.