She took my hand then. “I took a leap of faith.”
We exited the restroom, and Daiyu led me to another set of silver curved doors, following the shape of the circular building. A palm scan and they slid open without a sound, disappearing into the walls. The lights within the inner chamber came on and Daiyu stepped inside. It was a hall, probably seating no more than one hundred, cozy and intimate. A raised circular dais stood at the center of the room, with plush chairs surrounding it, all reclined. I glanced upward at the high, domed ceiling, an expanse of white.
“A theatre,” I said with sudden understanding. “You’ve built a dome theatre?”
These were popular a few decades ago, and there had been one in Taipei. But it soon went out of fashion, being too expensive for most meis and not high-tech enough for the yous, who preferred putting on sim suits for a fully immersive experience. Daiyu’s eyes flicked toward me, and she gave an enigmatic smile. She went to the dais and pulled a blanket and pillows from beneath it, making a nest for us on the small stage. Climbing on, she lay down and patted the space beside her. Although her pose was natural, she was exuding nervous energy, some unspoken tension that made me jittery in turn. What was she going to show me? What had been her story all this time? I got onto the platform and stretched out beside her, our shoulders touching.
She was avoiding eye contact, focused on her Palm, typing one-handed. The lights in the theatre began to fade, and I felt my pulse pick up, not knowing what to expect, yet filled with wary anticipation.
The theatre dimmed gradually, until we were in full dark. But then the domed screen above us took on a glow, so subtle at first I didn’t know if it was my imagination, until I recognized the Taipei skyline, precise as a paper cutout, with the skies brightening behind it. Thin wisps of white clouds were scattered across pale blue, a color I had never seen with my own eyes. Beyond, I glimpsed the sloping lines of distant mountains, the mountains that surrounded our city, that Daiyu had pointed out from my apartment in the 101, somewhere in the unseeable distance. Mountains that might have been as real as ancient dragons, for we had no proof they existed in our skyline except from old images of Taipei. And the sun crept up between them, bright and fierce. Blazing. I squinted, turning my head to the side as it rose between the peaks and climbed, godlike, and the skies deepened to an indigo blue around it.
Taipei was lit beneath, with fewer high-rises and no aircars, awash in colors from what the sun and skies gave. Instead of being smothered in a blanket of brown or gray. My heart hurt to see it—to see how it was supposed to be.
“Blue skies,” I whispered.
Daiyu squeezed my hand. “I kept returning to that conversation we had in your vegetable garden.”
I ran my thumb across her knuckles, not knowing how to respond.
“After I saw the footage played for the first time here,” she continued, “I wondered why we ever let it go.”
From lack of foresight. Greed. Hubris.
“I think I can even feel the warmth of the sun.”
“It’s because you do.” She turned to me and smiled. “I’ve designed the theatre to be experiential.”
“It’s incredible.”
She was using her Palm again, and the scene changed gradually before our eyes. At first, early morning mist obscured the landscape, but as the day brightened, the fog dissipated, revealing trees on the mountains, denser and greener than I’d ever seen. I recognized the thickets of Yangmingshan, opening up to a sea of calla lilies with their white blooms turned upward. It was an aerial view, from decades-old footage. A cool breeze swept over my face as the camera panned, and farmers walked between the endless flowers, all wearing hats to protect them from the sun. What I had seen, visiting with my mom, had been a muted version of this, the colors dulled, the expanse narrowed and clipped. But it had still been beautiful, walking among those blooms, holding my mom’s hand.
These hues from so many years past hurt my eyes, as if my vision wasn’t used to such pristine color. Such brightness. So different from the glimmer and flash of neon lights I had become accustomed to. A small figure waved in the distance, surrounded by calla lilies, and the camera zoomed in. A little girl with an upturned face, beaming, clutching a bouquet in one small fist and holding the brim of her sun hat with her other hand. She thrust the flowers in the sky, pointing at the camera overhead, and her mother approached from behind, laughing, putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. They waved together, smiling up at the camera, and it panned out until they became dots, swept across the field of flowers below, before lifting to show the horizon, the lush mountains punctuating the skyline.
A knot rose in my throat and I swallowed it, even as a light breeze brushed against my cheeks. I could almost smell the earth again, the mountains and pine. Something that I’d missed since being forced to leave my makeshift home in Yangmingshan. The image froze and slowly faded from the screen, until it was only white once more and Daiyu and I were lying in a dimly lit theatre. It felt still. Encapsulated.
“I created this for you,” Daiyu said in a soft voice after a long silence.
“But how did you—”
“I’ve spent so much time trying to understand you. Your motivations,” she said. “Trying to figure you out.” She let out a small breath. “You didn’t say a word when you kidnapped me.”
I involuntarily snatched my hand back—we had watched the short films with our fingers entwined. Blood surged into my head, filling my ears with white noise for a moment.
“It took a long time to walk back to your home,” she continued. “Two hours and twenty-seven minutes to be exact, according to my suit.”
“Your suit?” I repeated, uncomprehending.
“I never remembered anything, Jason. I still don’t remember.” She turned on her side, shifting closer to me, so I could smell her clean scent, the strawberry shampoo she used. It took every inch of my will not to shrink from her. I didn’t know if I was ready for what she was about to tell me. I had no clue as to what she would say. How would she end this?
“Your memory-wipe held,” she continued, “but my father was using me to test a new enhance, without my knowledge. My suit recorded the kidnapping. We had imagery from whenever I wore my helmet, and voice recording for the entire time. The camera didn’t work properly, so everything was dim, fuzzy. But the voice recording was crystal clear.”