“Y’all want some enhancement?” Miss Daisy drawled, her weathered hands hovering over the holographic makeup palette. The neon signs outside her ramshackle salon cast an eerie glow across her client’s face, highlighting the desperation in those augmented eyes.

The client, a young woman with factory-standard features, shifted uncomfortably in the ancient hydraulic chair. “Just… just make me look normal. Like everyone else.”

Miss Daisy clicked her tongue, the sound echoing through the empty salon. Once bustling with life and gossip, now she was the last holdout in a world where beauty had become binary - you either had the Corporation’s “Perfect Face” template, or you were nobody.

“Sugar, ain’t nothing normal about looking like everybody else,” she muttered, beginning her work with practiced precision. Her hands moved with an artist’s grace, applying subtle touches that wouldn’t trigger the facial recognition sensors.

“But the Corporation…” the client started.

“Lord have mercy, child. The Corporation this, the Corporation that. In my day, we celebrated what made us different.” Miss Daisy’s voice carried the weight of remembered summers, of mint juleps and front porch conversations about individual beauty.

Through the cracked window, the massive Corporation billboard loomed, its holographic model sporting the same face worn by half the city’s population. Miss Daisy remembered when that billboard advertised local businesses, back before the Beauty Standardization Act.

“My supervisor said if I don’t get the template soon, I might lose my position,” the client whispered, hands clutching the armrests.

“And that’s why you’re here instead of their clinics?” Miss Daisy applied a subtle highlight, barely visible to the naked eye. “Wanting to look like yourself but afraid to stand out?”

The client’s silence was answer enough.

Hours passed as Miss Daisy worked her subtle magic, each brush stroke a quiet rebellion against uniformity. When she finished, the young woman looked in the mirror and gasped. She looked like herself - only better, more confident, more real.

“But how… it’s so natural,” she touched her face in wonder. “The scanners won’t…”

A heavy knock interrupted her. Corporation Enforcement agents burst through the door, their identical faces eerily synchronized as they spoke: “Citizen reported for unauthorized beautification services.”

Miss Daisy stood tall, her accent thickening with defiance. “Y’all can take my license, but you can’t take away what makes us beautiful.”

The client, panicked, blurted out: “I didn’t want this! She forced me!”

Miss Daisy’s laugh was bitter as molasses. “Oh honey, that’s exactly what they want - for us to betray our own humanity for a pretty prison.”

As they led her away, Miss Daisy caught her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her weathered face, lined with years of rebellion and artistry, was the last truly unique visage in a sea of perfect duplicates.

The next day, the salon became another Corporation Beauty Center, its neon sign replaced with sterile white lighting. And Miss Daisy? Well, she got what she always wanted - to be truly unique. Now she’s the only one in the rehabilitation center wearing her own face.