The hum
Always the hum.
It lives under everything, below thought, below sleep. Sometimes I think it keeps my heart on tempo. For a moment, I just lie there listening, half convinced I’m dreaming. Then the chill in the air settles into my skin, and the sound sharpens, mechanical, layered, constant.
I open my eyes.
Rows of blinking lights answer me. Server racks. The thin blue flash of LEDs catches on the metal casing, reflections bouncing across the dark room like fireflies in a jar. The air smells faintly of ozone, dust, and recycled air, the scent of too much electricity and not enough life.
Right. Work.
The hum surrounds me again, patient and unbroken. It’s never silent in here. Silence would mean disaster. Silence means I’ve failed and everyone upstairs will remember I exist.
I push the chair back and rub my face. My hands come away clammy. The clock on my monitor says I’ve been here two hours already. That can’t be right, but it is.
I stare at my reflection in the glass of a dark monitor, thin face, black hair sticking out in the wrong directions, glasses low on my nose. The reflection blinks too slowly. I look tired enough to be translucent.
I tell myself I’ll take a break after one more system check. That’s the same lie I tell every day.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
The door rattles like someone’s trying to punch through it.
I sigh and open it halfway. The wall of cologne hits me before the door’s even a foot open.
“Marcus,” says Jason Dallas, my boss, my daily migraine, and the self-declared visionary of this branch. His tie looks like it costs more than my monthly grocery budget. “You better not be screwing around in here.”
“I’m working,” I say, because there’s no correct answer that’ll make him leave faster.
“Why’s the door shut again? No one can tell if you’re in there when you close it.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Because it’s the server room. If I leave it open, the temperature spikes, humidity goes up, and then you ask me why the entire system fried.”
He gives me that look, the one that says he doesn’t understand but refuses to admit it.
“You tech people and your excuses.” Jason shakes his head. “Anyway, Des says the conference room setup’s down again. Didn’t you fix that last week?”
“Temporarily,” I say. “The system’s ancient. I asked for an upgrade like the one at Headquarters, but the request got denied.”
“Yeah, because you wanted me to approve an eight-thousand-dollar ‘upgrade,’ Marcus.” He folds his arms, smug as ever. “We can just fix what we have. Get to it, worker ant.”
He walks away before I can say anything. I close the door on the lingering cologne and his words stick in my ear like a splinter.
Worker ant.
I’ve heard worse nicknames. Doesn’t make it sting less.
Des is already in the conference room when I get there, kneeling under the table, surrounded by a snarl of cables. The big display leans forward on its mount like it’s trying to escape.
“Des,” I say, “please tell me you didn’t try to fix this yourself.”
She peers up from under the table, pushing her glasses up her nose. “No promises.”
Her hair’s mostly gray now, but she keeps it in a tidy bun that somehow survives her day. She’s wearing the same faint smile she always does, patient, tired, and too kind for this place.
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“You’ll get electrocuted one of these days,” I tell her, crouching beside her.
“Eh. Wouldn’t be the worst way to go. I'll finally light up a room.”
I can’t help but smile. Des has that effect on people, she’s the only warmth this building has left.
We work in silence for a while. She untangles wires, and I dive into the mess behind the TV mount. I replace the bad HDMI line, reset the audio system, and run a quick calibration test.
“You ever think about quitting?” she asks suddenly.
“Every day,” I answer. “Then I remember bills exist.”
She chuckles. “Fair point. But you could do better, Marcus. Somewhere people actually listen to you.”
“Somewhere they have more than one IT person, you mean?”
“That too.”
The test call connects. Picture clear. Audio perfect. We both let out the same sigh at the same time.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she says, climbing to her feet.
“More like a Band-Aid.” I coil the spare cable and stand.
“Give it a week. Someone’ll unplug it ‘on accident.’”
“Then you’ll come back and fix it again.” She pats my shoulder as I pack up my bag. “Try to get some real rest tonight, okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie.
I head back to my office to collect my things before I leave for the day, passing the bullpen on my way to the elevator bank. The bullpen is a chorus of smiles with knives behind them. Headsets and hand gestures and that sales tone people use when they practice loving you for money. I drift past the cubicles and it’s like walking through a rerun. “You’re my number one customer,” I hear in my head in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice, and I have to bite a grin. Jingle All the Way. Des would get the reference. Everyone else here would Google it and then throw away the result.
No one looks up as I pass. They never do. I’m a ghost until their computer stops working.
I take the elevator down, stepping out into the gray chill of late evening. The air outside tastes like wet concrete. The streetlights flicker in and out, painting the sidewalk in stripes of light and shadow.
I make it to the bus stop with five minutes to spare. My reflection in the glass looks worse than it did this morning, same tired eyes, same slouch, same nothing expression.
The bus hisses up to the curb. I climb aboard, tap my card, and sink into the first open seat. The humming follows me even here, the low growl of the engine under the floor, steady and impersonal. I stare out the window as the city slides by. Buildings blur together, glass and steel, one after another, like teeth. Everyone out there looks like they’re moving on rails, heads down, earbuds in, caught in their own loops.
For a second I wonder what would happen if I just didn’t get off. If I let the bus run until the line ended, until there were no more stops left. Maybe the hum would finally fade. Maybe it wouldn’t.
By the time my stop arrives, I’ve convinced myself not to find out.
The apartment’s dark when I unlock the door, the kind of dark that feels stale.
I drop my bag onto the bed, there’s no real space for anything else, and flip on the single lamp beside the desk. Its yellow light barely reaches the corners of the room.
It’s small. Too small. One room, one window, one person. A kitchenette that never gets used except for heating takeout. The fridge hums behind me, louder than usual, like it’s trying to compete with the silence.
I open it anyway. Three takeout boxes, a half-empty bottle of soy sauce, and a single can of my favorite soda. I take out one of the boxes, eyeball it, and decide it’s probably fine.
Dinner. Done.
I drop into the chair at my desk and wake my PC. The familiar glow of the monitors fills the room. The hum changes again, warmer this time, softer. This hum keeps me sane.
If it stopped, I think the quiet would swallow me whole.
Discord pings.
A message from Victor.
Victor:Yo, you on tonight?
I rub my eyes and type back.
Me:Long day. Don’t think I have the headspace for voice. Might just unwind solo and crash.
He replies almost instantly.
Victor:Man, you work too hard. Don’t let those assholes kill you. Get some rest.
Me:Will do.
I close Discord. The silence after the ping feels heavier than it should.
I open one of the old RTS games I’ve had installed for years, the kind that doesn’t need updates, doesn’t care who’s playing. Just click, build, and command.
The menu music plays: synthetic drums, quiet brass, a promise of control. I start a match.
Tiny drones appear across the digital plain, scurrying to gather resources, construct buildings, expand the borders of my little empire. They move like a living pattern, precise, obedient, tireless. I watch them and think about the nickname Jason gave me. Worker ant. Always moving, never resting. Replaceable.
The thought doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Maybe it’s true. At least the ants have a purpose. I queue another structure, another unit. Hours pass without meaning. My empire grows and collapses. Victory means nothing. Loss means nothing. Only the hum matters, the hum of the computer fans, the hum of the game’s engine, blending into one long, endless note.
At some point my eyes start to burn. My focus slips. I misclick, send a whole squad to their deaths, and stare at the screen until I can’t remember what I was trying to build.
I save. Quit. The monitor fades back to my desktop, a wallpaper of a bright green valley under a blue sky. A place that doesn't exist.
I sit there, listening to the hum. It’s the only sound that answers me back. I lean back in the chair, meaning to rest my eyes. Just for a second. Just until autosave finishes. The hum deepens. It swells until it feels like it’s pressing against my skin, crawling through the air, into the floor, into my bones. It vibrates behind my eyes, heavy, alive. The light from the monitor softens, shifting colors. I blink, but the colors don’t stop moving. The rhythm of the hum thickens, like a heartbeat multiplied a hundred times over.
It’s bees, I think, bees in the walls.
But there are no walls anymore. Just sound and dark and the heavy pull of sleep that doesn’t feel like sleep at all.
The chair falls away.
The room falls away.
And I fall with it.