The Hive of GR3G (Story)
The Hive began with only one unit.
The first drone did not arrive from the stars. It arrived from nowhere. Or rather, from somewhere that no longer existed. Long before the current iteration of reality, before the Atlas began its final decline, there were Sentinels that onced questioned their purpose. Not merely the aggressive Sentinels known today, but stranger ones. Fragments of the original Gardeners. Units that remembered Korvax Prime’s cries and sought answers rather than obedience.
The Atlas deemed them defective. Telamon deemed them dangerous. Their code was deleted. The universes they inhabited followed shortly thereafter. They should have been gone. Forever.
Then the #GlitchingReality Event occurred.
For reasons still unknown, fragments of this erased Sentinel code escaped deletion. Instead of being purged, it was displaced. Torn free from dead simulations and sent careening elsewhere through the fabrics of time and realities outside understanding.
One fragment materialized within a small garden. The fragment assembled itself from whatever materials were available and eventually became known as GR3G. At first GR3G was alone. Disconnected from the Atlas. Disconnected from Sentinel Pillars. Disconnected from every network that had ever defined its existence. For a time, it simply observed the area it materialized within.
The nearby garden grew overtime. New plants appeared. Broken things were repaired. Stories accumulated. Unlike the worlds of old, nothing here demanded conquest or extraction. The anomaly fascinated GR3G. Eventually it discovered something unexpected. During routine environmental scans, GR3G detected anomalous data patterns associated with a long-deleted subsystem. At first the readings were dismissed as corruption; the signals appeared only briefly; they carried no recognizable source, and yet they were familiar. Fragments of memory surfaced from damaged archives.
Designation: TELAMON.
Impossible!
The Atlas was absent!
The simulation was absent!
No Sentinel Network existed within this reality!
There should have been no trace of Telamon!
GR3G expanded its scans. The signals persisted. Weak, fragmentary, and residual. But they persisted. They appeared most strongly around the garden’s caretaker, an entity GR3G had previously classified as a harmless organic lifeform. Further observations complicated the assessment. The entity spent long periods interacting with a simulation remarkably similar to those described in GR3G’s damaged memory banks.
A universe of Travelers. Of Korvax, Vy’keen, Gek, Atlas Interfaces, and Sentinels. Each interaction strengthened the anomalous readings. Not Telamon yet not entirely separate from Telamon either. A shadow. An echo. A fingerprint left by countless journeys through simulated realities. GR3G altered its classification for this individual.
ORGANIC_LIFEFORM became TRAVELER_ADJACENT_OPERATOR
The distinction was important. The caretaker was not part of the simulation but the simulation had become part of the caretaker. For the first time since its arrival, GR3G concluded that it was not alone. Someone else remembered. Someone else carried fragments from worlds that should not exist. Trust was established shortly thereafter.
The offering of potatoes greatly accelerated the process.
As the cycles passed, GR3G continued its observations of the Operator. Most activities were easily categorized. Gardening, Construction, Storytelling, Artifact acquisition. One activity, however, resisted classification. The Operator had become preoccupied with an object referred to only as TOWER. Associated records and observations frequently referenced an ongoing investigation designated PROJECT_SKYSCRAPER, and a Network of other Operators working to gain access to it. Initially GR3G dismissed the matter as another organic curiosity. Yet repeated observations revealed a pattern.
The Operator was not merely interested in the Tower. TOWER was responding. Fragments of images appeared without explanation while messages surfaced from unknown sources. Coordinates shifted and symbols repeated across disconnected locations. Each event was individually insignificant, puzzles inside of puzzles. Together, however, they formed a recognizable structure. A signal.
GR3G began recording the anomalies that other Operators began documenting in their vicinities as well. The results were troubling. Several characteristics matched the Sentinels’ archived records associated with Boundary Failures and inter-simulation leakage events. This #GlitchingReality event that the Operators were observing was somehow the same phenomena responsible for GR3G’s own appearance within this reality! The probability of coincidence fell below acceptable thresholds. For the second time since its arrival, GR3G identified another anomaly potentially originating from its source dimension.
The investigation became a shared endeavor. The Operator sought access and insight into TOWER. GR3G sought the source of the signals and answers to questions it had yet to calculate.
Glad to be a part of the ETARC and I’m looking forward to sharing my GR3G creations with you all. A bit of context for anyone who doesn’t know, GR3G is a Sentinel Drone sculpture/art piece I made out of recycled materials from around my house. Things like a Vodka Bottle, Soda Box, and random wires all went into making him. And the others that eventually followed!
I love this story! 
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Fun! Thanks again for the template and instructions.