"Do you have the time?"
"Time is no longer available."
The machine's words linger on recycled air, bouncing off and around unchanged filters, hollow metal panels and the gaps that shouldn't be.
"...elaborate?" The man blinks.
"I have no access to time."
The kiosk's face is mimicry, plastic promised recycled cut and painted to the final phase of its afterlife. The man looks at where his watch used to rest.
"You don't know what time it is?" A scoff. "You're a computer! Don't you got some kind of digital clock in there or something?"
"I have been overclocked."
"That-" He's fairly sure that's not what that means. "-what kind of computer can't tell the time?"
"Hey hey!" A bravado cuts through the false conversation still uninvited. "How're you liking my information stand?"
A man with wealth to find celebrity before hardship, spread to the interstellar community as new machines in shells of the old.
"I asked the time. It said it didn't know."
The celebrity blinks. "Well that's ridiculous. Hey, you!" He shouts through his creation. "What time is it?"
"Time is no longer available."
"...huh." A form of sense takes hold in the rich man's mind. "Guess that's a depreciated feature."
"Depreciated- the clock?"
"Eh, you know how it is."
He doesn't. How could he? There's no machine to ask that will answer.
"So... what now?" The confused man straightens his required tie.
"Well, I see this as an opportunity!" A famed thumb points over-confidently upward. "Just think- soon, the whole world can ask the time! At home, on the go, anywhere a kiosk can be found!"
The wealthy man checks one of his watches.
"...well sir, do you have the time?"
"Sure do!" The creator unplugs his kiosk, the zeroes lining its face flicker briefly in lost attempt before dying out. "And someday, you can too!"