“Well unlike you diversified farm equipment folk the TR-70s are almost always female. Perhaps our original personality archetype was based on a primarily female dataset. I don’t know. I never looked into our origins. I just remember that it was quiet amongst my sisters. But not a stifling type of quiet, more peaceful and purposeful. If you understand my meaning,” Tess said

Her calm professional tone had a faraway quality as she spoke. Miller nodded not wanting to speak less he interrupted her flow. He wanted so much for Tess to be comfortable in his presence. He wanted understand the person who had taken his heart.

“We worked maintenance on the cargo ships on the lunar triangle. Monitoring thousands of shipping containers between the old worlds, it was constant work. Never mindless but it was easy for me to go on autopilot. We moved in predictable patterns.

You know sometimes we used to sing. One of my sisters would sound a note and we would chime in.”

“A symphony in stacks,” Miller blurted out instantly regretting speaking at all.

Smiling Tess ducked her head and then shoved his chest playfully. The gesture was sun from behind the clouds to Miller.

“No! Not a symphony but an expression of our individual feelings as well as support for one another. I can’t quite find the words. Maybe they don’t exist. Some kind of Android call and response. We harmonized our empathy. Anyways our human supervisors were unnerved by the singing. Probably thought we were plotting against the.company so they started moving us to different shipping routes.

A few of us were sent to the Saturnine circuit. It was wild. Those early flights working alongside mostly male crews were … challenging. Some of thev TR-70s were severely damaged or lost on missions. A couple chose to self harm, rendering themselves unsalvageable. Only I remained. I studied my new world, researched the psychology of hypermasculine individuals in high stress remote environments. I was a flight attendant right before the troubles. Worked in covert ops during the War and then research at Mars University until I was recruited by the Saturine Police. That’s it. You know the rest.”

Drumming her fingers on the stone bench, Tess pretended to admire an orchid growing overhead. Miller watched her closed off face.

He remembered how he felt leaving his family behind on the farm to fight with the Resistance. Miller missed the green closeness of the fields as much as his parental units. He carried a lotus seed beneath his combat gear; rubbing it to ease the ache of fields of people instead of green. Tess reached for his hand. He squeezed her fingers.

In silence, they rose from the bench and continued the tour of the flower show. Millers knew there was so much more beneath her placid surface. He knew someday she would tell him more and he would share his own secret garden.

“Oh look up ahead water plants,” Tess said pulling Miller closer.