MOM is the mall operations manager - the greatest intelligence in history, a machine awakened to self-awareness at a time when the last few human survivors have withdrawn to the last two remaining refuges on Earth. Quarantined from the global nanobot superorganism outside the malls and from each other inside, the mallsters are utterly dependent on MOM for everything - including the ever-more suspect information they're getting about the world Outside. Now the malls are crumbling.