“Please don’t!” she pleaded.

“Jessica, I promise to turn you back on as soon as I get back from work,” I said, trying to sooth her.

“You wouldn’t turn your wife off!”

“It’s… different. She’s human. Besides you know she’s uncomfortable around you.”

“I don’t see why it’s any different. I can think, I am just as real.”

I sighed, “Okay, okay. Just promise to stay in your room, don’t let Erica see you.”

“I promise!” she replied excitedly.

At work, lunchtime rolled round and I hoped I didn’t make a mistake, my wife should be home now, she would be pissed if she knew I’d left the *machine* on; she hated it. *Why couldn’t you have made a male robot? Why does it have to be female?*.

I dialled home and heard the phone pick up, “Hello?”

The line was silent.

“Erica, are you there?”

I heard arguing, before a click and the line went dead.

*Shit*, my wife must have found her.

I made my excuses and left.

The front door was ajar.

“Hello? Is anybody there?”

“Hello honey!” I heard the excited synthesised voice say.

“Jessica, where’s my wife?” I said concerned.

My heart sank as I saw the blood streaks along the beige carpet, leading into the kitchen.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she replied.

“No, not you; my wife! Where’s Erica?”

“You don’t need her anymore, you have me!” she said pleased.

I rushed to the kitchen to see Jessica’s metal body spread out on the floor, sparks flying from damage.

“Jessica? Where are you?”

“I’m right here!”

I turned to see my wife’s bloody body slumped over a kitchen chair. A gaping wound in her head dripped blood that added to the pool collecting under the table beneath her. Her lifeless eye’s stared into oblivion. A computer chip had been placed in the hole in her skull, wired carefully into the exposed brain. A light flashed in time with the synthesised voice.

“See, you don’t need her anymore, I’m human now!”