Cupertino, California, Earth – 29 June 2017
A man in plain clothes strolled down a corridor with purpose. It was a long corridor, seamlessly built around a subtle curve in the building, so without even having to think about it, his footsteps traced out a section of an enormous circle. The length of his strides fell perfectly in sync with the the widths of the windows, so that each giant pane of glass was exactly three of his paces; the rhythm of his footsteps was echoed in the very architecture the building. But this was not surprising, given that he was the one who designed it.
The man was Jonathan "Jony" Ive, a person who believed in removing unnecessary letters as much he believed in the simplicity of great design. His favourite colour was white. His favourite font was Helvetica. And his favourite place to be was an empty room, painted white from floor to ceiling, in which he could only listen to his own voice. The new building had plenty of these, but also it contained the office of his supervisor and friend, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc.
The building, known as Apple Park, had been built around an enormous ring shape, wider from side to side than the Empire State Building was tall. The entire O2 arena could fit within the inside perimeter of the ring, with room to spare. Its construction had attracted a lot of press coverage recently. And because of its enormous size, neo-futurist style, and the fact it looked like it could have fallen from the skies into this humdrum suburb, the tech press had dubbed it the 'Spaceship Campus'.
This architectural masterpiece was going to be the new headquarters of Apple. And Jony was proud to say it was the single biggest product that he'd ever had the privilege of designing (even if he did have to share some of the credit with Lord Norman Foster). This, and the machines it housed, were the sum total of his life's work with Apple.
As he reached the far end of the corridor, he rested his hand on a sturdy metal door handle. But it wasn't just any door handle; it was custom-built, sculpted from the finest quality precision-milled aluminium, more minimalist installation than building fitting. He'd made perfectly sure whilst designing it that it would be the best door handle money could buy. He'd told himself, many times, that the only constraint to its design perfection was the human hands that operated it. So if he wanted to design a better handle, he'd have to begin by designing a better hand.
That would come in due time.
But for now, he just needed to get through this meeting with his boss, the way he'd done so many times before in product releases throughout the years. Those had been in a different building of course, but the emotions surrounding them remained the same. And of course, Tim Cook hadn't always been his boss back then. Jony fondly remembered working for Steve Jobs. The was until his mortal body succumbed to an illness in 2011.
Death. That had been the inspiration for so much of this project, without which the Spaceship Campus would not have existed. There was still a lot that he regretted. But Jony made a point never to dwell on the past, focusing only on what lay ahead. Because as much as he couldn't deny the new building was close to perfection as humanly possible, it was only the beginning of a greater undertaking.
When Tim beckoned him into the office, Jony could see the desk that usually held an iMac was instead covered in a couple of dozen iPad Pro devices. Even more of them were strewn upon the floor. Every one of obsessively engineered 1 2.9-inch tablets was showing a major world city in Apple Maps. London was on one of them, Beijing on another, New York, old York, Rome, Edinburgh. There was even one in the far corner showing a picture of Bristol.
When he spoke to Tim, it was with a seductively serene English accent, seemingly unaffected by 20 years of living in the States.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"Nothing that can't wait," he said gesturing towards a seat.
"You know, you could get that done with half as many devices if you used multitasking."
"Fool," he said in his slow Alabama drawl. "I'll use as many iPads as I can, because I'm Tim Cook."
"Yes Master," said Jony, taking the seat.
"Good. So what is it you wanted to tell me?"
"It's about Project Titan," he said, slowing down his speech to match Tim's. "I've double-checked the units myself, Master. They're ready for the first beta test."
"That's great," said Tim, swivelling in his chair whilst stroking a white iPad Mini that lay on his lap. "And to think, people out there were convinced we were building a car!"
And he laughed, a sick, villainous laugh. Jony was sure this was the reason the board of directors never considered him for CEO material. He just couldn't laugh like Steve and Tim did.
"Well, to be fair, Master, we did order a lot of things that looked like car parts."
"And you say they're ready for deployment?" Tim relied absentmindedly.
"Not yet, Master. Just the testing at the moment."
His boss frowned just a little at this.
"That's not good enough if we plan to release in a holiday quarter."
Tim's ice blue eyes were practically burning into him; he was being Cooked.
"But why can't it be next year, Master?"
"Because unit sales have been even higher than expected," he said. "The iPhone 7 continues to be the most popular product we've ever sold."
"You say that every year," Jony said.
Tim continued unabated, sounding as though he was rehearsing for a keynote speech.
"At the same time, we're building an incredible amount of momentum behind the best ever line of wearable products that we've ever shipped. WatchOS continues to be an industry-leading smartwatch platform, with the highest customer sat for the third year in a row. And AirPods have revolutionised the way we listen to music on the go. Our next wearable product needs to maintain this momentum if it's to truly move the industry."
Jony could tell by this that Tim was stressed right now. He always used his product pitches and corporate-speak as a way to de-stress himself.
"Oh, It will," said Jony. "But first I will need some live test subjects."
"That won't be easy," said Tim. Then, with a decisive nod, he said: "So how about this? I'll redirect company resources to fast-track the beta, if you can keep us on target for a September release date. I'll expect full accountability from you, Jony. Does that sound like a deal?"
Jony knew this would put the new product on schedule to be unveiled at around the same time as the 10th anniversary iPhone. Competing for stage time with Apple's most popular product was a risky move, but Tim knew what he was doing. He dared not question him.
"Yes Master, of course. Thank you, master."
Tim grinned.
"And now, can I just run something by you?"
Jony nodded, then proceeded to sit tight for the next ten minutes while Tim bored him with the latest information about supply chain logistics. It was very important, of course, but he didn't have time for this. He wished he was back in his white room.
When they got back on the subject of Project Titan at the end of the meeting, Jony asked Tim:
"Is there anything you'd like me to change about the design of the product?"
"No," said Tim. "My CEO's instinct tells me you've made it as good as humanly possible."
"So, still room for improvement?" said Jony.
"Yes..." said Tim, and he let out a laugh. Jony tried to copy him, but his bad guy laugh was inadequate.
When he left the CEO's office at 9:41 that morning, he did so with a smile upon his face. It had been a long time coming, but Tim Cook had given him exactly what he wanted: the opportunity to test his creation on live test subjects.
Before he'd even got halfway down the corridor, he decided to show Tim how much he appreciated him by sending him a few seconds of heart rate data, straight from his Apple Watch. His heart was beating very fast now; that much was true, but it didn't say anything about the context of the data.
The reality was that Jony Ive knew he was one step closer to recreating a world in his own image, and it would be a world without Tim Cook. All in due time, he thought.
For now, he just considered himself fortunate to have worked on so many great products at Apple. iPod... iPhone... iPad... and now iPeople.
AN: I just want to make it clear to y'all that Jony Ive is not an OC based on myself, even though our names are similar. (Like, WTF? It's just Jonty Levine with fewer letters!) Despite this, he is a real person who you can look up. His designs have been on basically every Apple product since the 90s, including the computer I am typing this on now.
If you're waiting for a chapter to update, I might recommend watching the 2-part episode beginning with Rise of the Cybermen (available on Netflix in the UK, Amazon Prime in the US). I still think it is hands-down the best Cybermen episode of Nu-Who. But of course, this story will make perfect sense if you haven't seen it.
Next chapter will have Bill and the Doctor in it. iPromise!