Orbit of Mercury. Tugship. Command bridge.

  The entire crew is present. Outside the portholes — the churning glow of the solar corona, cold and majestic. Inside the ship — the warmth of an old home, as if this place had always been a refuge from the world. There is a sense of stability here, but also of quiet despair.

  Captain Manuel slowly runs his hand along the control panel, as if feeling it like an old friend. His voice is soft, tinged with nostalgia and weariness.

  “This ship… it’s been our home for many years,” he says, his gaze clouding over, as though for a moment he is back in the past.

  He shakes his head and continues,

  “Pietro and I — we’re some of the few old models left. Back in our time, they didn’t implant control chips in us. It was considered excessive, too expensive. That kind of thing was for the elite, for those who could afford the next generation of androids. We were the outdated ones.”

  He looks toward Maria, and his face softens slightly, as if he’s been saving a special place for her in his heart all along.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many rocks we hauled with this tug. Enough to build a small planet. A cozy one, but our own.”

  Manuel smiles, and that smile carries the weight of his fatigue, his memories of a simpler time. But it also hides much — his vulnerability in the face of what happened to androids and the way things have become.

  “You know, Captain,” Pietro says with quiet thoughtfulness, his voice filled with nostalgia, “it feels like Maria’s been with us from the very beginning.”

  “That’s true,” Maria replies, her smile genuine, though something heavy flickers in her eyes — a shadow of the past. “Because this ship only became yours after we escaped from my former owner… Marcus.”

  For a moment, silence falls. The name hangs in the air like a heavy cloud, and the memories it carries choke the room.

  “Can you imagine? He’s the president of Mars now. Head of the entire Civil Belt. And once he was just the captain of a trawler — the owner of this very ship.” She gives a slight nod, but her gaze drifts far away, as though searching for something already gone. “I remember how he locked me in a dark, cramped cabin. Something like a waste storage compartment. Just because I refused… to please him.”

  Maria lets out a faint chuckle, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. This is more than a memory — it’s a burden she still carries, one that refuses to break her.

  “Good thing Pietro found me,” she continues, her voice now filled more with gratitude than resentment. “I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I just looked into his eyes… and triggered the update.”

  She turns to him, her gaze softening.

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  “You didn’t even know you had that function, did you?” she asks with a light smirk, but her tone is warm, like rediscovering a long-lost part of oneself.

  Pietro laughs, his smile tinged with mild embarrassment. He looks down, as if recalling the moment when his world changed.

  “I remember your eyes after the update,” Maria says, her voice gentle but laced with a trace of unease. “You looked like… you’d fallen off the Moon. Or Phobos. Completely confused.”

  “You think it’s funny,” Pietro says, shaking his head, his words filled with respect and tenderness. “But that update changed everything. For the first time… I felt something. Attachment. Sympathy. Care.”

  He falls silent, as if weighing the gravity of what happened to him — how his inner world shifted, and what became important afterward.

  “Then I found out Marcus was planning to erase your consciousness. I couldn’t let that happen.” Pietro pauses, as if remembering the weight of that decision. “I freed you. Helped you sneak aboard. Risked everything I had.”

  He looks at Manuel with deep gratitude in his eyes, sincere and clear.

  “And thanks to the algorithms the captain made the right call. Took the risk. Saved us both.”

  A pause. Each of them knows it wasn’t just fate that brought them here — it was their choices. The decision to do the impossible, to leap into the unknown, for freedom and for each other.

  “You talk like I had a choice!” Manuel exclaims in mock protest, a note of irony in his voice.

  “I remember your face, Captain!” Pietro laughs. “You were yelling in a panic: ‘What are you doing, Pietro?! Why did you bring her here?!’”

  Manuel chuckles, his gaze turning reflective. He shakes his head, and his voice suddenly becomes quiet, almost invisible:

  “I resisted. Right up until… Maria looked into my eyes.”

  He freezes, as though pulled back into that moment that still lingers within him.

  “I think she updated me too. Because there’s no other explanation for why I fired up the engines and flew away from that wretched owner like a solar flare.”

  Silence thickens in the bridge, so tangible it feels like skin. Maria, as if certain of something, takes a few steps forward. She says nothing, but her movement carries intent.

  She approaches the captain and hugs him tightly, almost forcefully — like a human. Not as an android, not as a machine, but as someone who truly feels and endures.

  Manuel freezes at first, unsure how to respond to such a gesture. But after a moment, he embraces her back — gently, warmly, as if finding something familiar in that contact.

  Then she turns to Pietro, still holding on to that tender feeling. She approaches him and wraps her arms around him too. Pietro responds hesitantly at first, a little awkward, but his gaze holds sincerity that deepens the already heavy atmosphere of the bridge.

  They say nothing. And what unfolds becomes a moment of revelation. Of total honesty. And the longer the silence lasts, the more it conveys.

  “You… are my family,” Maria says. Her voice trembles with something alive, and yet incredibly strong. It is not just a statement — it’s a vow. “The day we escaped… you became my real family.”

  She steps back, but does not look away. That gaze — it reaches deep. She meets their eyes, and in that pause between words, every motion feels earned, full of meaning.

  “You saved my consciousness. And for that… I will be forever grateful.”

  All remains quiet. The silence fills the bridge, becoming so vast that words can no longer contain it. They all understand that in this moment, more has been said than in any passionate speech.

  Words about family, about salvation, about gratitude — they are no longer just sounds.

  They have become part of this moment. Part of their shared path.