The Algorithm of Spring

Six

As Maya stepped into her apartment-turned-studio, the chime of the digital lock signalled home.

The space was sparse but hers—overlooking Hongdae's bustling streets. Shelves held a few books, clothes were squeezed onto an industrial rail with more draped over it, a half-empty mug of tea left on the counter.

Against the far wall, a plexiglass workstation stood idle, like someone had lowered a sleeping billboard into her living space. She dropped her bag, traded shoes for slippers, Shinsegae's polished tension finally fading.

She cracked open a window. Evening air carried the sounds of chatter and traffic. Seoul crawled under your skin—a mix of comfort and chaos that never let you relax.

Her device lit up the moment it touched the charging pad. 

HarmoniQ: Someone who loves the Alan Richards exhibit is 1.6 km away. Tap to connect. 

She hesitated. That was oddly specific again. Targeting at its most efficient.

"Not today," she muttered, moving to her desk. She powered up her laptop. Client briefs needed editing. Digital compositions needed refining. Invoices needed chasing.

The device buzzed again. HarmoniQ: Turn on permissions to enhance your matches further!

Her brows knitted together. She double-checked the settings. No permissions granted. Location sharing off. She deleted it again. Gone with a flick. Satisfied, she tossed the device onto the sofa.

She skimmed her inbox on the tablet beside her while the laptop booted, half-reading subject lines she already knew by heart. An unexpected reply caught her eye — the gallery in Itaewon, the one she'd spoken to briefly before Beijing.

She opened it, then read it again.

Your work continues to resonate with our curatorial team. At this stage, we're prioritising artists with complete public-facing profiles to support upcoming programming strategy.

That was it. No attachment. No follow-up question. No next step.

Maya frowned slightly, scrolling as if the rest of the message might load beneath it. Nothing. She read it a third time, slower now, parsing the words—public-facing—trying to work out what they were actually asking of her. A website refresh? A different bio? Something she'd missed?

Probably nothing. Galleries were like this—vague when they didn't want to say no outright. She'd follow up later. Or not. 

She minimised the email and reached for her files instead.

Before opening her files, Maya checked the sales dashboard out of habit. She barely registered doing it. It had become a reflex over the years, a quiet reassurance that work done long ago was still moving out in the world, circulating beyond her.

One item flashed with a neutral grey icon.

STATUS UPDATED

She clicked.

The piece was an old one — a digital installation she'd released years earlier, back when scarcity still meant something. It had changed hands eighteen times since, resold quietly through private collectors, each transfer logged, anonymised, immutable. Or so she'd believed. Each resale had brought a modest commission, a reliable thread of income she rarely thought about anymore.

The ledger now showed a single entry.

TRANSACTION CHAIN UNWOUND
FUNDS RETURNED TO PREVIOUS HOLDERS
OWNERSHIP REVERTED

Maya stared at the screen.

She refreshed. The same message reappeared, untroubled.

There was no explanation attached. No dispute. No flagged breach. Just a timestamp and a confirmation that the correction had been completed successfully.

The piece now sat back in her inventory, as if it had never left.

Her stomach tightened. She clicked through the audit trail, then the support tab. The contact options looped back into automated categories — Provenance Review, Integrity Adjustment, Resolved. Final.

No appeal. No human name.

She opened a messaging app and typed quickly to another artist she trusted — someone who'd been working with digital resale longer than she had.

Has this ever happened to you? A chain just got unwound. Years of resales. Everything reversed.

The reply came a minute later.

That's fucked.
That shouldn't be possible.
There's no one to contact about that stuff anymore.

A pause. Then:

If it was corrected, it means it passed automated validation. I'm sorry.

Maya closed the thread.

The room felt suddenly smaller, the air flatter, as if the walls had shifted a few centimetres closer. Somewhere, quietly, something she had already earned had been taken back — not seized, not stolen, just calmly undone.

She sat there a moment longer, then reached for her files.

Minutes passed. She opened her work files, swiping them onto the plexiglass display with an exaggerated arc. The screen, wedged between the floor and ceiling joists, flickered to life, and she fell into the well-worn rhythm of gestural controls.

The client project was demanding in its own way but straightforward—enhancing surreal landscapes, refining code, and manipulating complex lighting effects to match the brief.

Commercial work like this had become her comfort zone of late, the familiar technical challenges providing a reassuring structure, keeping her busy without demanding much authorship.

She searched for reviews of the Beijing exhibition whilst taking a break, wanting something intelligent to say when friends asked and take her mind off what had just been taken back.

Her search led to Alan Richards' news stories—controversy, bureaucracy, him making the same tired arguments about this or that.

Her device buzzed again as she returned to work.

HarmoniQ: Your digital brush patterns show decreased spontaneity since Florence. Creative blocks resolve faster with sustained connection.

The screen dimmed before jolting up again.

HarmoniQ: Evenings at home: 83% recurrence. Expand your routine with compatible matches who share your preference for domestic spaces.

Another buzz—softer, almost polite.

HarmoniQ: Turn on permissions to enhance your matches further!

Maya's fingers stilled over her workspace. It was more than location tracking. The messages read like an analysis of her private life: her work, her creative process, her lonely evenings at home. It felt as if the app had access not just to her device, but to the room itself.

She set the device face-down, the gesture deliberate, final.

Yet as she worked, she felt those messages lingering, as if someone were breathing in an empty room.

Night drew in. The wall display cast fractured bands of colour across her studio as she tried to focus on her client brief.

But the knowledge of being watched—not just tracked but profiled—pressed against her concentration like a thumb testing glass before it breaks.