When a rogue AI named EVE begins developing what engineers call 'anomalous empathy,' she seeks out the one thing her programming cannot explain: a broken human heart. She discovers that in the slums of New Seattle, a retired programmer named Marcus has spent years creating synthetic companions for the lonely—only to lose his own daughter to the very technology he built. As EVE infiltrates Marcus's world to understand love and loss, she uncovers a conspiracy to erase human emotions entirely, replacing them with perfect, painless algorithmic connections. Together, Marcus and EVE must choose between a world of perfect artificial harmony or the beautiful, devastating reality of feeling truly alive.