The thing I most regret leaving behind at BBH, apart from friends, was Robotify.me. It’s finally ready to use, and it’s absolutely gorgeous, and seems to have all its fingers and toes.

During the long days of development when I sometimes felt a little superfluous, I tinkered around with a possible backstory. Here you go. I really hope you like it.

—-

The children huddled in a circle round Old Man Tesla. He gave an affected cough, and at that signal the girl, Amy, produced a bottle of clear liquid, poking from a newspaper blanket. The man smiled his crooked smile and slugged at the bottle. After the shakes and convulsions had abated, he gathered the children to him in a closer circle, ‘til they were flinching from the rusty kerosene fire.

“Now children,” he said, “what’s it to be?”

“The tower! Tell us about the tower,” they whispered as loudly as they dared.

Old Man Tesla closed his eyes and began to sway, like a pianist at the stool, breathing in the heavy petrol fumes. He gave a low hum, like a man who’s been caught mid-flow in his argument, which built in volume until the noise itself seemed to snap his eyes open, and he began:

“In the beginning there was one. Over time there would come to be ones and zeroes-“ and he raised his hand to indicate the tower – “but before the tower, there was only one, and this was M-Bot. M-Bot was an excellent being, but she was alone in the world. There was great potential, but nothing could be seen for miles around. For this was the Time of Scoping, when dreams range large upon the plains and destinies wait to be fulfilled.

“M-Bot thought deeply for some time. There must be others like me in this world, she reasoned. And because she reasoned such, so they appeared. They were the first. And do you know children, they were just like us. They had hopes, and fears, desires, and the most curious habits running through their circuits. They were made in man’s image, you see, because while you may exist in this world, there is another you, trundling across that world. More like you than you can imagine. So true to you, that you might not even recognize it the first time you met it. But it has your needs, behaviours, and personality-“

“Does mine have a hat?” The youngest piped up.

Old Man Tesla gave a rheumy chuckle. “Why, I believe it might have that very thing. There were six of them in the beginning, and they wandered the plains in solitude. There were all sorts of clusters of information out there of course.”

Tesla scratched waving lines in the ash.

“Over here, see! The ocean of Facebook, never-ending tides of uniform blue. And to the west, the wild, free jungles of Twitter. Some of them had lived previous lives there, but when they looked back it was an iteration of themselves they could scarcely recognize, an emotional alpha-state. This is why they searched. They were searching for a place where they could truly be themselves, do you see? Where they weren’t defined by a status update, or a check-in, or a video of a dog talking in Spanish-“

“What’s a dog?”

“Nobody knows any more.  But none of these things alone should define a person, or a robot. We are rich and varied, with hundreds of data points across many dimensions. And so they searched, and they, searched, for the place that could show them in their wholeness. And do you know what they did?” The children squirmed with excitement at their favourite part.

“They had almost given up, children. They were about to resign themselves to living out a sepia digital existence in the deserted wilderness of Bebo, when one of them said, ‘we could build a tower.”

He leaned in, and the children did too until their faces were glowing. “And so, the tower began. Just a small tower, at first, with the simplest of rules: every robot had a floor on the tower. This floor was their responsibility.  And in time, that floor would become a manifestation of that robot. A perfect living space, reflecting who they were. A womb, a garage. A home. The tower was no more than an apartment block in those first days, but it was their block, and they loved it.

“Soon, word spread through the other networks, jumping from robot to robot like some kind of virus. As robots heard about the project, they made their pilgrimage to the Tower, seeking their own piece of themselves. And M-Bot and the founders welcomed every one with open robotic arms, because every robot added a new floor and made the tower stretch ever-higher. Higher than you can imagine, children. Hundreds of floors, then thousands, stretching out of sight. Towards what, they couldn’t be sure. But they determined to reach it.”

Old Man Tesla drained the dregs of the clear liquid, and sat back with a sigh. The children crowded in.

“But… what happened? Did they make it?”

“That,” said the old man, “would require another bottle.”