"Something is wrong with the clock."

"...what?"

"Look at it."

20:70.

"That's not possible."

"Or it's ten past nine...?"

"No, because that would be twenty-one-ten. This is twenty-seventy." A pause. "Do you think it's odd, that we rely on technology so heavily?"

"Not especially. Everything is technology, really. Pen and paper, that's technology. Not advanced, but it's still technological. You see, externalising information - "

"Yes, yes, I've heard you lecture." She gave him a look. He'd clearly forgotten how they met.

He looked at her again, and she wondered if he had. "Of course you have. It's natural, for us to rely on technology."

"But it's flawed. Look, that clock is proof - twenty seventy. An impossible time."

"We live in an impossible time." He smiled, something in his eyes she can't place, something she can't compute.

She gives him a look - it's what she does when she can't understand him.

It's part of her protocol.

"You're worrying too much. We can trust the machines, we can trust the technology. We can fix it."

"There might be a time when we can't."

She walks away, and he worries she's right, that the next time she malfunctions he won't be able to fix her. It's happened before, and it took him months to repair her.

Robot wives are not the easy solution they are meant to be. The consciousness is what makes it so hard.

And they break as easily as flesh.