Book 2: The Trialborn Legacy

The visitor's center was disturbingly pristine, as if it had been frozen in time. Every surface gleamed, from the polished welcome desk in the center to the spotless glass skylights above that flooded the room with natural light. Zavier's eyes roved over the details, taking in the open, modern design, and the unsettling perfection of it all. The air was unnaturally still, carrying a faint hint of lemon cleaner, but it was the walls that held his attention.

The walls were made of massive screens, seamlessly blending into the architecture, displaying peaceful scenes from outside—the swaying of trees in the wind, clouds drifting lazily across the sky. But something was wrong. Zavier's gaze sharpened as he noticed the patterns in the movement, the way the trees swayed in sync, like they were part of some unseen choreography. The clouds seemed to form shapes that were almost recognizable - faces, maybe - but they would dissolve just before he could be sure. The screens flickered, just for a moment, but long enough for Zavier to see what was really being shown.

His breath caught as the scene outside replayed, but distorted. The pack of mutated dogs that had pursued them through the forest was now shown lying dead in a grotesque pile, their bodies twisted and broken. The clouds above them reflected distorted versions of his family's faces, their expressions twisted in horror, before dispersing into the sky like smoke. The flicker was so brief that it was easy to dismiss as a trick of the light, but Zavier knew what he'd seen. Out of his peripheral he caught another image of his family lying dead, their bodies torn apart by the dogs that had their heads thrown upwards in a silent, triumphant howl. It disappeared as his eyes flicked to it but his perfect memory caught the scene in vivid detail. More scenes of 'what if?' played, almost too fast to register, but just slow enough to leave them with a deep sense of subliminal unease. They could have died a dozen different ways and the screens were showing all of them.

Beside him, Tess shifted uneasily, her senses on high alert. She didn't need to see the flicker to feel the wrongness in the air. The perfection of the room was too precise, too calculated, like someone - or something - had prepared it with meticulous care, but lacked the understanding of what would actually make it feel welcoming. There was a coldness here, an artificiality that set her on edge. The silence, the stillness - it was too perfect. And that perfection made it all the more threatening.

Zavier's hand tightened around the chain he held at his side, his mind racing as he scanned the room again, trying to pick out anything else that was off. Tess stayed close to him, her eyes never resting on any one spot for too long. They knew the unseen voice was watching them and they weren't anxious to see what it had in store.

"Something's been here," Tess murmured, her voice low and edged with suspicion. "It's like they've been expecting us."

Luna, usually so cheery, felt the weight of the atmosphere pressing down on her. She hugged herself, her eyes wide as she looked around, trying to find something - anything - that wasn't so unnervingly clean. "Why would anyone set this up?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's like they want us to feel safe, but..."

"But they don't understand what safe feels like," Zavier finished for her, his tone grim. He took another look around, this time focusing on the subtle clues. The untouched surfaces, the welcome desk, the open, inviting lobby - it was all a setup, a way to lure them into letting their guard down.

As they approached the welcome desk, Zavier's eyes paused on the tablet resting on its surface. It looked innocuous enough, but after what they'd just been through… he felt a deep unease stirring in his gut. He exchanged a look with Tess.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Zavier asked, his voice low and cautious.

Tess nodded. "I don't like it. Feels like a trap. We don't touch that thing unless we have to."

Luna moved closer, her curiosity battling with her instinctive fear. "It could have answers, though, right? Maybe it'll tell us what's going on here."

Cass shook his head, his face pale as he glanced nervously around the room. "Or maybe it's just another way to mess with us. I don't trust anything in this place."

Zavier considered their options, his mind racing through the possibilities. "Stay close," he said, his voice steely with resolve. "We're not touching that thing unless we have no other choice. Whatever's running this place, it's watching us. Learning from us."

"And we're going to make sure it doesn't learn anything useful," Tess added, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the room once more.

Together, they moved deeper into the visitor's center, every step taken with caution. The feeling of being observed was stronger now, the tension building with each moment. The screens continued their eerie display, the distorted images flickering in and out of view, reminding them with every glance that they were not alone in this place.

The hallway led them to a break room that sprung to life the moment they entered. Fluorescent lights flickered on with a soft hum, illuminating the space in an almost warm glow. It was a stark contrast to the sterile, eerie visitor's center they had just left behind. The room was clean, almost unsettlingly so, and it smelled faintly of coffee - freshly brewed, just like the pot in the lobby.

Zavier's eyes swept the room, taking in the details. The break room was furnished with a few round tables, each with a couple of chairs neatly pushed in. A coffee machine sat on a counter against the far wall, steam rising lazily from the carafe as if it had been brewing for them specifically. Next to it, a bowl of fresh fruit - a mix of apples, bananas, and oranges - rested on one of the tables, the fruit so vibrant and perfect it almost looked artificial.

Opposite the coffee machine were a pair of vending machines, humming softly. One dispensed snacks - chips, candy bars, trail mix. The other offered drinks - bottled water, sodas, energy drinks. The neon lights inside the machines reflected off the polished floor, casting strange shadows that danced with every small movement.

Tess scanned the room with narrowed eyes, her senses on high alert. The break room felt too welcoming, too normal, as if it were trying too hard to make them feel at ease. It only made her more suspicious.

"Why does this place keep trying to offer us snacks?" Luna asked, her voice a mix of curiosity and unease. She stepped closer to the fruit bowl, her hand hovering above a perfectly ripe apple. "It's like it wants us to relax."

Zavier frowned, his gaze shifting to the walls. The posters caught his attention first - bright, cheerful images that seemed out of place in the sterile environment. One showed a smiling family standing in front of a power plant, the father's arm around the mother's shoulders while a little girl, no older than seven, held a balloon. The caption below read: "Nuclear Power - Safe, Clean, Reliable." Another poster depicted workers in hard hats, grinning as they gave thumbs-up to the camera. "Your Safety Is Our Priority," it proclaimed in bold letters.

But there was something wrong with the posters. Zavier's sharp eyes caught it immediately - a faint smear of red on the edge of the family poster, as if someone had tried to wipe blood off the image but hadn't quite managed to get it all. His gaze flicked to another poster, this one showing a technician at work, and saw more of the same - red stains that had been half-heartedly cleaned, leaving behind a haunting reminder of something gone wrong.

"What do you think it's trying to do?" Cass asked, his voice low. He was eyeing the vending machines warily, his instincts telling him that nothing in this place was as it seemed.

"It's gauging us," Zavier replied, his voice thoughtful. "Trying to learn something from the choices we make. It's already been watching us - learning how we react, what our weaknesses are."

Tess nodded, her hand drifting to the hilt of her knife as she glanced between the vending machines and the fruit bowl. "The question is, what does it want to know? What is it hoping to find out?"

Luna's hand dropped away from the apple, her fingers curling into a fist at her side. "What if it's a test? Like, if we pick the wrong thing, something bad happens?"

"Or maybe it's seeing if we trust what it offers," Cass suggested. "The coffee, the fruit - it's all fresh, but why? Why would it do that?"

Zavier stepped closer to the vending machines, studying them intently. "Maybe it wants to see how we make decisions under stress. Do we pick the easy option - the vending machines - or do we take the risk and go for something that seems healthier, like the fruit? What does that say about us?"

Tess moved to the fruit bowl, her eyes narrowing as she examined the fruit. "And what happens if we pick one over the other? Does it make a difference? Or is it all part of the game?"

The room seemed to hold its breath as they considered their options. The vending machines, with their brightly lit displays, promised convenience - a quick, easy solution. The fruit, with its too-perfect appearance, was more of a gamble. Would it be as fresh as it looked? Or was it a trap, a lure to make them drop their guard?

Zavier's mind raced as he tried to figure out the voice's angle. If it was learning from their choices, what would each decision tell it? If they picked the vending machines, would it see them as cautious, taking the safer, more familiar route? Or would it view that as a sign of weakness, a reluctance to take risks? And if they chose the fruit, would the AI see it as a sign of trust, or as recklessness?

"What if it's a test of trust?" Luna mused, her brow furrowed in thought. "Like, does it want to see if we'll trust what it's offering us?"

Tess's hand tightened on her knife, her instincts screaming that there was no right answer here - only choices that led down different paths. "Or maybe it's testing our instincts," she said. "Seeing if we'll trust our gut or if we'll let fear guide us."

Zavier nodded slowly, his mind working through the possibilities. "Whatever we pick, it's going to learn something about us. And whatever it learns, it'll use against us later."

They stood there in tense silence, each of them weighing the options in their minds. The choice seemed simple - vending machine or fruit bowl - but the implications were anything but. They knew that whatever decision they made, it would ripple through the rest of their journey, shaping the voice's future tests and challenges.

Finally, Tess broke the silence. "We don't pick either. We don't need to eat and we're not putting anything this thing gives us in our mouths."

Zavier sent a quick message over the party chat. "If this thing is watching us, we need to show it that we're not predictable - that we're not going to follow the path it expects."

Before the voice could recognize that they'd communicated silently he followed up out loud. "Just leave it. We're done here."

As they turned to leave the break room, the lights flickered briefly, and the vending machines hummed louder for just a moment before falling silent again. A small red light inside a smoked-glass dome on the ceiling watched in silence as they left, none of them noticing the fruit disintegrate into a moving morass of shiny, metallic dust.