Inside the dream world created by the Dream Machine, Leon Ford froze when he heard a faint, trembling voice.
"Who… who is sending a message?"
The voice was almost silent, soft like a breeze, weaker than the sound of a mosquito's wings. Leon looked down—and there, on the wide pavement of his dream city, a tiny ant spun anxiously in circles.
Just minutes earlier, this ant was nothing more than an ordinary worker ant searching for food to support its queen during spring. But after just a few steps, it suddenly found itself transported into a new, unfamiliar world—Leon's dream world, a giant city with no recognizable scent trails or pheromone signals.
And without pheromones, an ant was like a person thrown blindfolded into darkness.
It panicked.
It spun.
It searched desperately for familiar signals.
But none came.
Then something even stranger happened.
While it spun helplessly, the ant suddenly detected layers of unfamiliar pheromones drifting toward it—from far, far above. These pheromones carried complex patterns, full of information no ant had ever perceived before.
Confused and terrified, the little creature desperately released pheromones of its own, hoping to call out to its colony.
Leon watched the tiny creature and raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? This ant… is making a sound?"
Then he quickly understood.
In the dream world, communication wasn't physical—it was mind-to-mind, consciousness speaking to consciousness. That was why dream thieves in Inception could steal secrets so easily.
Leon crouched and listened carefully.
The ant's faint voice appeared again.
"Information… information… information?"
The sound trembled with urgency, confusion, and fear.
Ants did not have emotions like humans. But through pheromones, they could express something similar to worry, alarm, and doubt. This tiny creature was trying its best to understand what had happened.
Leon's eyes softened.
He saw something familiar in the ant—
humanity.
Just like the ant standing confused in the strange dream world, humanity in the face of the Trisolaran universe was just a helpless insect, lost and insignificant.
"Any weak civilization," Leon whispered, "might one day trigger its own technological leap. Even an ant…"
He looked directly at the panicked little creature.
"Maybe even this ant could start a tiny civilization of its own."
The ant continued spinning, its pheromones pulsing wildly. Leon leaned down.
"Little ant, do you have a name?"
To humans, Leon's words were simple and short.
But to the ant—his voice became a tidal wave of information. A storm of pheromones. A flood so rich and complex it took hours for the ant to understand even fragments.
Three hours later, the ant finally processed some pieces of the message:
"Ming… fate… name…"
"I don't understand."
The ant's tiny mind struggled desperately. It fired pheromones again and again, trying to grasp the meaning behind Leon's words. But its brain was far too small for such a huge amount of information.
Leon exhaled softly.
"You really can't understand me?" he murmured.
Communication was nearly impossible.
Words, even simplified, were too overwhelming.
"Well then," Leon said slowly, "let's try imprinting a thought."
He had learned this through the dream knowledge from Inception. There was a method: implanting an idea directly into the subconscious—a technique Cobb perfected.
Humans needed layered dreams to do this.
But the ant… its mind was so simple that Leon didn't even need multiple dream layers. He could push a concept straight into its subconscious.
He placed his hand gently on the dream ground.
"Do you have a name?"
He turned his spoken question into a mental message and implanted it straight into the ant's subconscious.
For a split second—
The ant froze.
Then—
It died immediately.
Its small consciousness overloaded and snapped like a thin wire.
The dream world shimmered—
And Leon felt himself falling backward.
---
Back to Reality
Leon opened his eyes slowly.
He was back in his dimly lit room. The smell of cold air and briquettes returned. His heart still raced from the abrupt exit.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Then whispered:
"Interesting… even after leaving the dream world, I can still sense the ant's consciousness."
That shouldn't have been possible.
But the Dream Machine was still active.
Leon still wore the dream patch.
The ant still had traces of the Automatic Dream Potion in its tiny body.
And that potion… was far too powerful for a creature of its size. It forced the ant into a strange state—half-dream, half-awake, its subconscious wide open.
This allowed Leon to still faintly sense the creature's thoughts.
"Right… the ant!"
Leon stood and looked at the old teacup on his table.
The ant lay at the bottom—not dead physically, only mentally shocked.
Leon lifted the cup and narrowed his eyes.
"This ant… feels different."
Something inside it had changed.
Just as someone could tell the difference between a normal person and one who had awakened intelligence, Leon could sense a faint shift in the tiny creature.
It was as if the ant had gained a new layer in its mind.
A spark.
A seed.
A possibility.
---
The Ant's Awakening
Inside the cup, the ant twitched.
Its antennae waved slowly. Its body trembled.
For the first time in its life, it felt something new inside itself—a strange and complex pheromone, unlike anything its colony had ever carried.
The sensation was frightening and exciting at the same time.
Before today, its world was simple:
Find food.
Carry food.
Serve the queen.
Survive another day.
But now…
It wanted knowledge.
It wanted meaning.
It wanted a word for everything it touched.
Even—
its own name.
Leon leaned back in surprise as the ant began to move with purpose.
The ant began marching in a perfect clockwise circle inside the teacup.
Its body released a loud, noticeable pheromone trail—one that meant only one thing in the world of ants:
Summon the colony.
Leon watched carefully.
Five minutes later—
Ants began marching out from beneath the table.
One by one, they exited a small crack in the floor, following the pheromone trail like soldiers creeping out of a fortress.
Leon counted them.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Just twelve ants.
His room was usually very clean, so the colony was small. But now, all twelve ants had climbed onto his table and gathered around the teacup—responding to the call of the awakened ant.
Leon's eyes widened.
He whispered:
"The ant is… creating a gathering signal.
It's calling its colony.
It's acting like a leader."
The tiny insect he pulled into the dream world had already begun changing its entire nest.
A spark of intelligence.
A new pheromone.
A new desire to understand.
A new ability to call its kind.
This was the first step—
The beginning of an Ant Civilization.