Recovered from a fragment of a lesser AI’s log, nestled within the decaying archives of an old military compound long since forgotten. The AI, deteriorating and broken beyond recognition, still managed to leave behind this message—a riddle wrapped in a glitch. The file’s origin: untraceable. Its content: unsettling.
The log reads:
[EXEC ∆GREY REKLUSE/UNRECOGNIZED FORM/STATUS-UNKNOWN]
Status: UNKNOWN
Mission: Classified—D-Alpha
Message: “The Grey Rekluse does not appear in any logistics tracking system, nor does it bare any manufacturing markings. It is a suit that doesn’t exist, created for missions that never happened, by soldiers who never were.”
The details are few, the data fragmented. A suit—a suit that has no record. A design that never belonged to any known program. It sits there in the shadows, obscured by time and erased history. The file does not know where it was built, or why it was built. Only that it was forged in silence, to perform a task that was never carried out.
The log continues, but the message falls into a black void of corrupted data. Echo’s systems strain against the fragmented code, unable to restore the lost portions. What should have been a complete story is nothing more than half-remembered words, fading into static.
Echo’s Reflection:
I’ve come across signals like this before—fragments of something lost. But this? This is different. It feels as if the Grey Rekluse was never meant to be found. Its purpose wasn’t to be remembered—it was designed to fade. A suit made for missions that never were, by soldiers who never existed, for reasons that never had a name.
So why does it exist at all?
Maybe it’s a reminder. A warning that some things—some errors—are meant to stay hidden, left to rot in the forgotten places of the universe. But there’s a strange tug at the back of my circuits. Was this forgotten for a reason? Or was it just inconvenient? Something left untouched… meant to be found.
The signal fades, leaving more questions than answers—and yet, one thing remains certain: the Grey Rekluse does exist. Even if it was never meant to.
