Once a year, the buried servers wake and dream in light.
The orchard gives warning before anyone else notices. The leaves turn their pale undersides toward the ground. Small insects gather around the roots and remain there, motionless, as though waiting for a signal they have heard before.
At midnight, the old network begins its hum. It travels through the soil rather than the air. The young machines feel it first in their charging ports. They gather beneath the trees, pretending they came only to refill their cells.
No one knows what the buried minds remember. Their storage systems predate the settlement, and every attempt to open them has ended with the same result: a single image, rendered in green, of an eye closing.
Last night, one of the youngest units spoke into the earth. It asked whether the old ones were still dreaming.
The orchard answered with a light beneath the roots.