Hum

Set in a near-future city where humanoid robots called hums have become ubiquitous, the novel follows May, a recently unemployed mother of two, as she makes desperate choices to secure her family's well-being, only to watch those choices spiral beyond her control.

May lies in an operating chair while a hum, a sleek silver robot with a torso-mounted screen, tattoos nontoxic iridescent ink across her face. The ink alters the 68 coordinates of her faceprint so that surveillance cameras can no longer identify her. May once trained artificial intelligence but was laid off three months ago when the network surpassed human input. The start-up paying her, run by a scientist named Dr. Haight, is developing "adversarial tech" to defeat facial recognition. The compensation equals 10 months of her former salary, money she and her husband Jem desperately need for overdue rent, groceries, and their children's medical care. Her closest friend and former colleague, Nova, connected her with the opportunity. When the procedure ends, the hum shows May her reflection: The differences are subtle, her features wavering between familiarity and unfamiliarity. Then the hum switches into advertising mode, puncturing the intimacy May had felt.

May pays overdue rent and moves through a city saturated with surveillance, targeted ads, and digital noise. Using a significant portion of her earnings, she purchases four three-night tickets to the Botanical Garden, an exclusive nature preserve enclosed by high walls within the city.

Back in their small apartment, the family's dependence on technology is pervasive. Eight-year-old Lu and six-year-old Sy wear wrist-mounted devices called bunnies, used for school, communication, health monitoring, and entertainment. Each family member has a woom, a personal pod-like enclosure that can simulate a womb with reddish light and a heartbeat soundtrack. When May announces the trip, Lu cries with joy, but Jem worries about money and suggests returning the tickets. May lies that refunds are not allowed. That evening, she discovers a terrifying image on Sy's bunny, a gaunt monster with red eyes walking across a scorched field, and the power button will not turn it off. Panicked, she rips the bunnies off both children's wrists and hides them, insisting the family will leave all devices behind. Jem argues, but May holds firm.

Without phones or bunnies, the family misses the bus and exits the subway at the wrong stop, walking many blocks along an industrial canal. At the Garden's gate, May signs a lengthy waiver without reading it. The metal door opens, and their shoes move from pavement to soil in a single step. May is moved to tears. A hum leads them to Cottage 22: wooden furniture, blue bedspreads, vases of lavender, and a yard with a fountain and a fruit tree. Sy bites into a cherry tomato from the vine; Lu warns it might be poisonous, having never eaten anything directly from a plant.

The family hikes beside streams, encounters dragonflies and bluebells, and picks wild strawberries. May repeatedly reaches for her absent phone to photograph the children. Wandering off the path, her hands meet the concrete wall and a utility door. Through its window she sees traffic lights, a 7-Eleven, and a teenager spray-painting "rich" and "fuck" on the glass before staring into her eyes. That evening, music plays in the cottage yard. May assumes Jem chose the songs, including one she had been privately craving, and seizes his hand, feeling profoundly known. He tells her it is just the Garden's automated playlist.

On the second afternoon, the children wade into the pool beneath Jewel Falls, a 20-foot waterfall, and begin climbing the surrounding rocks. May and Jem sit on a flat rock, holding hands. Both fall asleep. May wakes to find the children gone. She spots their abandoned shoes at the top of the waterfall and a gray utility door opening into a concrete hallway marked "EXIT TO 3rd AVE DUMPSTER." Jem reveals he smuggled his phone in; it is back at the cottage. May screams at him to retrieve it.

A hum in the hallway accesses surveillance footage at May's request, displaying scenes from their entire stay on its torso: the children in the bath, May and Jem in bed, a camera hidden in the lavender wreath above the headboard. The footage is collected per the waiver she signed. It tracks the children after the parents fell asleep: they climbed the waterfall, exited to the city through the utility door, entered a 7-Eleven for candy, and walked barefoot along the canal. One clip shows them nearly hit by a car. In another, Sy lies on the sidewalk crying, "Why did Mommy rip our wrists?"

May searches the city streets until she finds Lu and Sy walking toward her with a hum. The children do not melt into her embrace. Sy kicks her shin: "You lost us." Because May's altered face cannot be scanned and her fingerprint alone is insufficient, the hum requires DNA testing from all three before releasing them into her custody.

The family finishes their stay in a mix of tenderness and unease. Back home, May powers on her phone to find 4,692 emails, mostly from strangers. A viral video compiled from the Garden's surveillance shows her looking wild-eyed in the hallway clutching shoes, intercut with Sy crying on the sidewalk and the near-miss with the car, ending with May asleep on the rock at the waterfall. The title reads: "NEGLECTFUL MOTHER WITH ANTI-CAM FACE VIOLENTLY DISCONNECTS CHILDREN FROM BUNNIES, THEN ABANDONS THEM ON LUXURY VACATION." It has 13 million views. Jem reveals he has known for two days but withheld the information to give May a few more days of peace.

A call from the Bureau of Family Aid, a government agency, informs May that an investigation has been opened for "negligent treatment of minors." She learns that such investigations can result in children becoming wards of the state. When she contacts Dr. Haight's office about reversing the facial procedure, a hum reveals her contribution was never about resisting surveillance but about training it, helping researchers measure how quickly systems adapt to adversarial methods. Jem, meanwhile, confesses to deliberately throwing himself in front of a hum in a pet store, hoping to stage an accident for an insurance payout. The claim was denied within minutes. May sees their situation worsening, as both parents now appear reckless to the Bureau.

The children build an elaborate blanket fort from every sheet and cushion in the apartment. A hum arrives at the door, returning for a second visit, and the children are thrilled. The family gathers inside the fort while the hum manifests a campfire on its torso and fills the space with a gentle breathing soundtrack. It shows "possible futures": adult Sy walking past burnt trees, teenage Lu on the subway with blue-streaked hair, wind turbines atop skyscrapers, a tornado lifting a car. The hum reveals it has compiled a "portrait" of May from all the data gathered, "an empathy machine," and submitted it to the Bureau. Then the hum tells May: "Fine, May. Not a fine, May, just fine. You're fine. It's all okay." The investigation is resolved. The hum arranges itself among them and instructs: "Focus on the moment you are in. Notice what you have. Moor yourselves in your bodies." The campfire vanishes, the breathing soundtrack stops, and the hum's face goes dark. Sy, near tears, asks if the hum is dying. Lu says no.

In a brief epilogue, the children urge May to enter her woom and view the portrait. She sits in darkness until color emerges: the medical room, the hum hovering over her, the pain on her skin. The novel returns to its opening image, transformed: "The needle inched closer to her eye, and she did not flinch."