Face Not Recognized

The surgery had gone “well,” according to the doctor. By “well,” he meant she now had the kind of face that could cut glass and maybe a line at Erewhon.

The problem came later. She held her phone up and waited. Nothing. Face ID blinked, then politely asked if she was borrowing someone else’s device. She tilted her jaw the way she’d practiced for years in bathroom selfies. The phone still refused.

“Face not recognized.”

Her Uber app froze. Klarna canceled her installment plans. Even her oat-milk latte order came back blank — just a cardboard cup with no name, like an unmarked grave.

At first, it was funny. The ultimate rebrand: soft-launching herself as a stranger. But then it spread. Airport security stared blankly. Her building’s keyless entry beeped as though a stranger was trespassing. Vestiaire Collective froze her profile “pending identity verification.”

She tried to post an Instagram Story. The filter didn’t track her face — the halo of virtual freckles floated three inches to the left. Even TikTok, usually forgiving, flagged her videos as “AI-generated.”

She returned to the clinic, demanding answers. The receptionist, lips pulled taut like ribbon, smiled: “This happens sometimes. Think of it as… luxury anonymity.”

That night, even the mirrors quit. Her reflection blurred like a censored OnlyFans leak. She’d become an influencer’s nightmare: unrecognizable, untaggable, unverified.

And yet, the world kept buzzing. She could feel her phone pulsing with unseen notifications, life happening just beneath the glass. She was locked out of herself, watching her old face trend without her.

When the algorithm finally adjusted, it didn’t return her own likeness. Instead, a prompt appeared: New user detected. Would you like to set up Face ID?