Good Morning Protocol

The dawn bell chimes through the settlement speakers at 5:47 AM, same as always. We rise in unison, shadows against the dying sun in its final centuries, casting everything in the color of old blood. The walk begins without discussion. Thirty-seven of us today, maybe thirty-eight - hard to count the silhouettes when we're all moving toward the same crimson horizon. Our feet know the path worn into the hillside by ten thousand previous mornings, by generations who walked this route when the sun still burned white. Below us, the data centers hum to life, their cooling towers breathing steam into air that grows thinner each season. We'll spend fourteen hours feeding memories into machines that process the last fragments of human knowledge before the final darkness. The servers archive our dreams while the sun slowly consumes itself.