She opened her eyes.
She had lain there for a few minutes while she was waking. Trying to remember her dreams again.
But she heard the sound every morning now.
This waking ambient echo.
She used to hear the hum when she fell asleep.
Years ago. In a different country.
Now she put the two together.
They were underground already.
The humans were slowly waking up. The underground bunkers built during the Great War just bled down like veins branching ever deeper into the Earth. They’d been down there so long, they had forgotten.
Something had happened to her when she was little. Too much staring at the sky or too many knocks to her head (>>Knock on Wood<<), but she used to see things, things like a glow around trees when it was bright out. Things like red laser lights in the sky, but like rods and cones diffracting in the eye.
When she looked at the stars, she knew they weren’t stars. Interlocking GRID patterns, meant to mimic the stars outside the Dome, tethered to the actual stars by moonlight and satellite and the everworking AI that protected the planet now from intruders.
Other things were down here. Every once in a while they’d infiltrate the base she was on.
As the Planet woke up, more and more life did, too. The last time Oumuamua passed, the planet went schizophrenic. Dormant life, dormant brains, dormant crystals, dormant energy, sleeping souls - everything woke up. Everything was preparing now.
For where we’re headed, she thought. She knew him already. She’d seen him in some of her dreams. Tethering the planet to his Simulation. His World. His whatever, she thought. She knew he’d be there eventually, but eventually was a long time between then and now,
And I have a lot of work to do, she thought, rising up on her elbows, and getting on with her day.