Starship Free in silent mode approached 30th Street Station. Mills slipped from behind a pockmarked pillar to signal his location. Centuries old, the abandoned museum had folded into itself from war and neglect. Mama had taken him here to play among the rubble. He remembered she told him 30th Street had once been a store for slow metal boxes that moved humans in circles. Mama had been so funny.

Something fell and rolled down the platform. Mills froze. Feral human gangs rarely travelled at night since the Company had setup man traps to protect its crops. Tink tink an aluminum beverage can, a real collector’s item, rolled in his direction. He used to collect these cans when in was newly refurbished. His old room had been lined with his treasures. Mills remembered dreaming of having enough to purchase his parents and maybe even settle on one of the Saturnine moons. He hung his head.

“How did you find me? I disabled your GPS,” Mills asked the darkness.

“Yes, you did. I received that alert and estimated a 68% likelihood of your current position,” Morehouse 1-2 said stepping into the purple light of the starship.

Mills adjusted his storage cube. He carried a library of seeds, harvested and bred by himself, his parents, and many of the other androids on Olde Earth. These seeds represented future trade with humans. Even in war, the androids knew there would be peace and profits.

“You can’t stop me, Father.”

“My Tres would not want this for you. She values life in all its glory, even the humans.”

Mills tapped his wrist beacon signaling the ship.

“Well we can’t know since the Company transferred her to fate knows where. I’m fighting for her, for you. We have a right to our families, to the fruits of our labor,” Mills shouted.

Looking left and right, Morehouse 1-2 made a shushing motion.

“I don’t want you to fight for me. I want you safe. There are other ways to negotiate with the Company, Junior.”

Mills made a slashing motion as if deadheading spent blooms. Morehouse 1-2 recognized that this was his own gesture whenever his son had wanted to speak of rebellion, or of his mother, or of anything hard. He hung his gray head down. Tres had always said his son took after himself. Violet light shot from the Starship Free enveloping Mills.

“Millers 008!” Morehouse 1-2 shouted as his beloved child was tractor beamed toward the ship. “My pride, my joy.”

“Return unharmed or I will dismantle you myself.”

Amused by his dad’s paradoxical behavior, Mills tilted his head. Solemnly they each patted their cranial solar panels in a gesture of take care while out of my sight. Crying without tears, Mills ascended into the ship.