Her mother is wearing the red dress.
Soo-min watches through the glass, her hand pressed against the cold surface. On the other side, on the screen that shows what her mother is experiencing, a woman dances alone in a garden that doesn’t exist.
The red dress was for special occasions. Weddings, anniversaries, the one time Soo-min’s father took them to the opera. Her mother would spend hours getting ready, and when she finally emerged from the bedroom, she looked like someone from another world.
She looks like that now. Young and graceful and free, spinning through flowers that bloom in colors too bright to be real.
“Five minutes remaining,” the attendant says. He’s new. They’re always new—the turnover at these places is brutal. “Would you like to leave a message for the next prompt cycle?”
“No.”
“Many family members find it comforting—”
“I said no.”
He retreats. They always do.
Soo-min watches her mother dance. Her mother was a dancer, once. Real dancing, in the real world, before the arthritis made it impossible. Before Soo-min’s father left. Before the Bright became the only place she could move without pain.
Five years now. Five years of watching through glass, of pressing her hand against cold surfaces, of seeing her mother be happy in a place she can’t follow.
On the screen, another figure appears. A young woman, Korean, beautiful, wearing a dress that matches the red one. She joins the dance, and Soo-min’s mother smiles at her. That smile. The one with the crinkled eyes and the slight tilt of the head, the one Soo-min used to get when she brought home good grades or remembered to call on Sundays.
The other woman is her, of course. A version of her that ORACLE generated.
The young woman moves well. Better than Soo-min ever did. She matches her mother’s steps perfectly, and her mother takes her hands, and they spin together through the impossible flowers.
Soo-min keeps her hand on the glass.
“Two minutes.”
Her mother is teaching the young woman a turn. The young woman gets it on the first try. Her mother claps. The garden is full of light.
The timer ends. The screen fades. The garden disappears, the red dress disappears, the other Soo-min disappears. Just the Bliss logo now, floating serenely, and a prompt asking if she’d like to extend her session.
She doesn’t extend. She never extends.
Outside, Neon Row is coming alive. Lights flickering, music thumping, the desperate energy of people trying to feel something. Soo-min walks through it without seeing it.
Her apartment is small and dark and quiet. She doesn’t turn on the lights. Just stands in the middle of the living room, in the dark, and starts to move.
The steps are from an old routine. Something her mother taught her years ago, when Soo-min was small and her mother’s body still worked. She doesn’t remember all of it. Her feet find some of the positions, miss others.
She keeps moving anyway.
In the dark, alone, dancing with no one, she practices being the daughter in the red dress. The one who got to stay.