"You're not scared, are you?" Bryce’s voice echoed through the phone, a sly grin sneaking into his tone, even across the distance.
Kim smirked, her finger hovering over the keyboard. "Scared? Of what? Pixels and code?" She leaned back in her chair, sunlight streaming through the curtains of her living room, casting a soft glow over her collection of art supplies—paints, brushes, canvases—once the tools of her trade. But today, something else sat in front of her: the glowing, ever-changing canvas of ReLeaf.
Bryce had always been the adventurous one, the one diving headfirst into the latest tech with no fear. He'd been the one to call ReLeaf "a new kind of library," and that was what first pulled her in. But Kim wasn’t so easily won over by buzzwords and promises. A retired curriculum developer, she had spent her life weaving order from chaos, but this—this new world of AI-generated art, digital remixes, and the limitless possibilities of ReLeaf—was chaos of a different kind.
With a deep breath, she clicked into the platform. It greeted her with a series of vivid colors and bold shapes, an invitation to explore. But something felt different, almost like a secret whispered just out of earshot.
She began her exploration the way she always did—with a plan. ReLeaf’s tutorials were neatly organized, but one stood out: a collection of AI business lessons by Yujin, a name she’d heard murmured among the more tech-savvy circles in Austin. People spoke about him like he was more than just a teacher—like he knew something. Something big.
As she clicked into Yujin’s lessons, his voice, calm and deliberate, flowed through her speakers. His explanations were clear, but layered beneath his words was something else. The more Kim watched, the more she noticed his subtle pauses, the way his eyes flicked to the side, just off-camera, as if he were checking for something. Or someone. She tried to shrug off the feeling—after all, this was just a tutorial, wasn’t it? But a thought nagged at the back of her mind: Why was someone like him teaching such basic concepts, when rumor had it he was working on something far more advanced?
"This could revolutionize how we create art," Yujin said, almost to himself, just before the screen flickered, the feed briefly distorting. Kim leaned closer to her monitor, heart skipping a beat. For a second, she could have sworn she saw something in the glitch—a flash of code, strange symbols, then gone.
She hesitated, fingers trembling above the pause button. Maybe she was reading too much into it, seeing intrigue where there was none. Or maybe… no, she couldn’t go down that rabbit hole. Not yet.
Instead, Kim scrolled through the rest of the platform. A digital collage caught her eye—an image of Austin, bathed in neon light, its skyline distorted in a way that made it look both futuristic and haunted. It wasn’t just art. There was a message embedded within the layers, something only those who knew where to look might find. Kim’s pulse quickened. She added it to her workshop collection, making a note to dig deeper into the artist later.
Her exploration of ReLeaf continued into the afternoon, and with every piece of digital art, every AI-generated soundscape, she felt herself pulled further into a strange new world where nothing was as it seemed. She had planned to use the platform to teach retirees how to create AI art, but now, she wasn’t so sure. There was something more here, something just beneath the surface, waiting to be discovered.
When Bryce called again that evening, his voice was laced with the same playful teasing as before. "So, how’s your new 'library'?"
Kim glanced at the glowing screen, the collage of Austin still displayed, and for a moment, she thought about telling him what she’d seen—about the strange glitch in Yujin’s video, the hidden code, the feeling that something was off. But instead, she smiled, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"It’s just the beginning," she said softly, almost to herself. "I think there’s a lot more to discover."