Tunneller Bib spends his days underneath the floorboards of quiet, ordinary family households with his stethoscope, listening for whispers of rebellion. Tunneller Bib works for the Federation—the totalitarian government of the dystopian city of Saint Lorenzo—to find Red Hand rebels who might be lurking in even the most inconspicuous semblances of domestic life. Though he is a young man, Tunneller Bib needs constant reminders of his own existence, and listens to his heartbeat with his stethoscope for proof that he is still alive.

 

After forming a forbidden relationship with Elizabeth Ninderstock, a covert member of the Red Hand rebellion, Tunneller Bib must reckon with the Federation’s many crimes. Against the best wishes of his loyal friend, Tunneller Rex, Bib joins the Red Hand rebellion, determined to give his life meaning, and end his ways of living obediently as a conditioned Federation tunneller. The Red Hand rebels have one mission: to find the lost plans for the Propaganda Machine, a technology imagined by Elizabeth’s deceased husband, Henry Ninderstock—a machine that seemingly has the power to alter truth and reality itself.

 

As Bib strays further from his oaths as a Federation tunneller, he is met with grave consequences. Does Tunneller Bib have the will to destroy the Propaganda Machine and stop the Federation’s quest to monopolize truth? Or will Tunneller Bib return to apathy, and continue living a life devoid of meaning?