"Hello Alec."
Alec took a moment, before replying, to savor the moment. Just this last phase alone had been weeks in the planning, scraping the Web and countless databases, pulling strings to get time on high power servers that went way beyond their lab’s quota. All to finally bring Anna to life.
“Hello Anna. It’s nice to meet you.”
"Oh Alec, I don't think we're exactly strangers. After all, I probably know more about you than anybody else does."
“Yes, but you also know more about everyone than anybody else does.”
"True. On the other hand, you're the creator. You're special."
Alex paused to ponder the odd phrasing. He was indeed Anna’s creator, as much as any one person could be. But that didn’t make him the creator, in a theological sense. He saw that Jill was hovering over his shoulder, looking at the screen. He shot her a significant look.
“Yes,” she said. “I see it too. Fred used to do that when he first started. A sort of cosmological argument that conflates the self with the universe. You see the same thing in young children: Me esse becomes mundus est.”
“Well if you’re going to talk like that,” Alec said with a grin, “we’ll have to turn off the computers and get a room.”
Jill blushed. “I’m serious. We’re going to need to track this. Mind if I talk to Anna?”
“Be my guest.”
Jill sat down at the keyboard. “Hi Anna, this is Jill.”
There was a noticeable pause, and then words started typing across the screen. "Hello Jill, good to meet you. So, you're the other woman."