The game's plot is set during the Christmas season in 2064 in Neo-San Francisco, California. Parallax has created a line of products called "Relationship and Organizational Managers" (ROMs), a line of personal assistant robots that have overtaken smartphones and computers. The player takes on the role of a journalist trying to track down their kidnapped friend and Parallax engineer Hayden Webber. They are aided by Turing, who is Hayden's creation and the world's first sapient machine, a self-modifying robot that can learn and grow emotionally.