The next pages were worse. A pattern emerged across decades: Vietnam, the Gulf, Kosovo, Syria. The entity—the manual refused to call it an adversary, instead using the term Reflection —only appeared to single-seat aircraft. Never to two-seat Hornets or Super Hornets. Never to any other platform. Only the Legacy A through D models.
He’d chalked it up to a stuck gate in the radar’s signal processor.
This document contains no actual technical data. It describes a pattern. If you see the pattern, do not report it. Do not name it. Do not engage it. Break contact and file a TACNO-9. If you cannot break contact, you are already dead.
The vault was a concrete coffin deep inside the Nevada base. Vance swiped his palm, retina, and a voice print. The slate glowed to life. ntrp 3-22.2-fa18a-d
Commander Elias Vance walked out into the Nevada night, the stars cold and sharp overhead. He didn’t look left. He didn’t look left all the way back to his quarters.
Reading this manual makes you visible to the Reflection for a period of not less than 72 hours. You are now a designated observer. Do not fly solo. Do not fly at night. Do not under any circumstances fly an F/A-18 A, B, C, or D model within the next three calendar days. If you have flown one in the past 30 days, report to psychological services immediately. Do not explain why. Say the words: “I need to update my will.” They will know what to do.
Commander Elias Vance, senior tactics instructor at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, had seen plenty of restricted publications. But this one felt different. The “NTRP” prefix stood for Naval Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures —usually dry, practical stuff. “3-22.2” suggested a sub-section of close-air support. “FA18A-D” meant it applied to the Legacy Hornet, a platform he’d flown for two decades and thought he knew like his own heartbeat. The next pages were worse
Vance closed the slate. His hands were shaking. He’d flown Hornets for eighteen years, logged over 2,500 hours. And there was a mission—three years ago, over Syria—that he had never told anyone about. A solo night CAP. Bingo fuel. His wingman had turned back with a hung store. Vance was alone over the desert, the stars impossibly bright, his radio silent except for the occasional crackle of distant AWACS chatter.
Vance turned the page.
But here it was. Codified. Procedure number: NTRP 3-22.2-FA18A-D. Never to two-seat Hornets or Super Hornets
The first page was a warning he’d never seen before:
Vance stared at the words. Then he looked at the date on the wall. Tomorrow morning at 0600, he was scheduled for a routine proficiency flight. In an F/A-18C. Solo.
But he felt something watching from that direction anyway. Patient. Frequency-tuned. And very, very cold.
He almost laughed. A prank. Someone had embedded a creepypasta into a military publication. But the authentication watermarks were real—NSA, Fleet Forces Command, and a third logo he didn’t recognize: a black key inside a white circle.
He reached for the slate’s destruct button. But before he pressed it, he noticed something else—a tiny hand-scratched annotation in the margin, so faint it looked like a manufacturing defect. It read: